Why can hyenas/cheetahs live in deserts, but lions and leopards cant?

[Queller]

Ostriches actually do not live within the Sahara Desert itself. They only live in the Sahel-the outskirts and semi arid regions of the Sahara, which has a more moderate climate than the actual sahara desert itself. Sahel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ostrich - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Again you have missed the point. The conditions in the Sahel are massively different than the conditions in the Antarctic but ostriches and penguins are still both birds.

 

[CabVet]

Why can fish live in the water and not fly? Why can birds fly and not live in the water? Different animals do different things.

 

[Manic Spinoza]

Why don't hyena's evolve to be smart has humans, get a job, and move to the jungle so we don't have to answer dumb questions?

 

[Sammy-San]

Again you have missed the point. The conditions in the Sahel are massively different than the conditions in the Antarctic but ostriches and penguins are still both birds.

Now I understand what youre trying to say. Animals of similar species (felines and birds) can live in massively difference biomes and regions of the world.

However, that still doesnt explain how cheetahs could have once been widespread all over the Sahara Desert historically, as many maps and sources show. There are no large herbivores that actually live in the Sahara Desert that cheetahs can hunt. There are ostriches and gazelles there, but they only live in the outskirts of the desert and the sahel. Camels arent an adequate food supply for cheetahs who supposedly lived in the sahara. There are only 5 million humans in the sahara who live in isolated areas (who herd camels), and that isnt enough of a food supply for cheetahs who supposedly lived everywhere in the Sahara.

 

[CabVet]

Now I understand what youre trying to say. Animals of similar species (felines and birds) can live in massively difference biomes and regions of the world.

However, that still doesnt explain how cheetahs could have once been widespread all over the Sahara Desert historically, as many maps and sources show. There are no large herbivores that actually live in the Sahara Desert that cheetahs can hunt. There are ostriches and gazelles there, but they only live in the outskirts of the desert and the sahel. Camels arent an adequate food supply for cheetahs who supposedly lived in the sahara. There are only 5 million humans in the sahara who live in isolated areas (who herd camels), and that isnt enough of a food supply for cheetahs who supposedly lived everywhere in the Sahara.

Cheetahs only lived "everywhere in the Sahara" during a time when there was food for them to survive there. The Sahara has not always been a desert. Today there is no food for Cheetahs in most of the Sahara, and therefore no Cheetahs in most of the Sahara.

Green Sahara: How climate change transformed the desert

 

[Sammy-San]

Cheetahs only lived "everywhere in the Sahara" during a time when there was food for them to survive there. The Sahara has not always been a desert. Today there is no food for Cheetahs in most of the Sahara, and therefore no Cheetahs in most of the Sahara.

Green Sahara: How climate change transformed the desert

The Sahara Desert used to be a lush forest/savannah in prehistoric times (it became a desert about 5000 yrs ago), and even lions and giraffes used to live in that area when it wasnt a desert.

However, most map of animal ranges (with the exception of ice age animals and dinosaurs) are based on the animals historic range, not its range in prehistoric times. Every single map of the cheeaths historic range that I found includes huge portions of the Sahara desert, not just the semi arid outskirts. Even this map (which doesnt show cheetahs living everywhere in the sahara) does show cheetahs living deep into the Sahara.

 

[Radagast]

Lions and leopards do live in some deserts and arid areas (kalahri and namib deserts in africa, and arabian dry areas near mountains), but if you check out a map of their historical ranges, lions and leopards (even when they were once historically widespread all over north africa and the middle east) have never lived in the Sahara or Arabian deserts, which are two of the most dry hot lifeless deserts in the world, with sand dunes, etc. However, according to a map of cheetah historical range, they once lived in the sahara and arabian deserts. According to a map of hyena range, they do live in the arabian and sahara deserts.

Cheetahs live in grassland, and open woodland areas. See here. They do not live in true deserts, though they do live in some fairly dry areas. Being ambush predators, they can, for example, lie in wait at waterholes.

The so-called "Saharan Cheetah" (which may well be a distinct species) appears to have some desert adaptations, though it is very poorly understood, partly because it only seems to hunt at night. My understanding, however, is that its range covers the Sahel and mountainous areas of the Sahara where some water exists.

The striped (as distinct from the spotted) hyena does live in some desert areas, being adapted for fairly dry conditions.

What was your question again?

 

[USincognito]

Ostriches dont live in deserts as dry and harsh as the Sahara.

Orly?

 

[Radagast]

Orly?

That map shows ostriches in the Sahel. What's your point?

 

[USincognito]

That map shows ostriches in the Sahel. What's your point?

It also shows them in the Namib, which is just as harsh as the Sahara.

 

[Sammy-San]

Cheetahs live in grassland, and open woodland areas. See here. They do not live in true deserts, though they do live in some fairly dry areas. Being ambush predators, they can, for example, lie in wait at waterholes.

The so-called "Saharan Cheetah" (which may well be a distinct species) appears to have some desert adaptations, though it is very poorly understood, partly because it only seems to hunt at night. My understanding, however, is that its range covers the Sahel and mountainous areas of the Sahara where some water exists.

The striped (as distinct from the spotted) hyena does live in some desert areas, being adapted for fairly dry conditions.

What was your question again?

The topic of this thread is about cheetahs, not wolves, but I will use wolf habitat/range as an analogy to my question about cheetahs.

Even though wolves still live in Europe and China and the US, they have lost huge amounts of habitat and only have a tiny portion of their historical range and population in those regions, because as human populations in those areas increased, people killed the wolves because they viewed them as a threat to livestock. However, there are still huge wolf populations in Canada and Russia-from what I've read, Russia may have close to 70,000 wild wolves, and Canada close to 60,000 wolves. That's because Russia and Canada are less densely populated and have more harsh climates where very few people live in, unlike Europe and the US. Now, let's see how that connects to cheetahs and their range.

Similar to Canada and Russia, the Sahara desert, even the mountainous areas (which have water) is very sparsely populated with humans, which leaves a lot of habitat for a carnivore to live in. There are only 5 million people in the whole Sahara, which is almost the size of the whole US, so even in the mountain areas with water, I would imagine it has a very low population density. I would imagine there would be very little human-predator conflicts over livestock in the Sahara, for the most part, because of the small human population. So why have cheetahs lost almost their entire population in the sahara, if the human population is very low there and they have enough space to live without human predator conflicts over livestock? Only about 250 cheetahs still live in the sahel and sahara, compared to many thousands which probably lived there decades ago.

 

[Radagast]

compared to many thousands which probably lived there decades ago

Evidence?

 

[Sammy-San]

Evidence?

The map that I posted on the previous page (of cheetahs historic range, I'll post it below) shows cheetahs living in probably hundreds of thousands of square miles in the Sahara, in the mountainous areas. If cheetahs were that common in the Sahara, how can you say that their population in that region wasn't at least in the tens of thousands?

 

[CabVet]

The map that I posted on the previous page (of cheetahs historic range, I'll post it below) shows cheetahs living in probably hundreds of thousands of square miles in the Sahara, in the mountainous areas. If cheetahs were that common in the Sahara, how can you say that their population in that region wasn't at least in the tens of thousands?

First, historic range does not mean range yesterday. "Historic" has a different meaning in biology, it means geological time. Several thousand years ago, the Sahara was not a desert.

Second, range has nothing to do with population size. A species can have a very wide range but very low numbers (which is often the case for top predators).

 

[Queller]

The map that I posted on the previous page (of cheetahs historic range, I'll post it below) shows cheetahs living in probably hundreds of thousands of square miles in the Sahara, in the mountainous areas. If cheetahs were that common in the Sahara, how can you say that their population in that region wasn't at least in the tens of thousands?

How long ago do you think that the cheetah's range was as depicted in the map on the left? Also, relatively there is not much of the Sahara that was considered part of the cheetah's range.

 

[Radagast]

The map that I posted on the previous page (of cheetahs historic range, I'll post it below) shows cheetahs living in probably hundreds of thousands of square miles in the Sahara, in the mountainous areas.

That was thousands of years ago, when the climate was different, not decades ago. And the map does not give population density figures.