Acinonyx jubatus soemmeringii

The Northeast African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus soemmeringii) is a cheetah subspecies occurring in Northeast Africa. Contemporary records are known in South Sudan and Ethiopia, but population status in Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia and Sudan is unknown. It was first described under the scientific name Cynailurus soemmeringii by the Austrian zoologist Leopold Fitzinger in 1855 on the basis of a specimen from Sudan’s Bayuda Desert brought to the Tiergarten Schönbrunn in Vienna. It is also known as Sudan cheetah. In the 1970s, the cheetah population in Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia was roughly estimated at 1,150 to 4,500 individuals. In 2007, it was estimated that 950 individuals live inside protected areas in this region; the number of individuals living outside protected areas is unknown. This subspecies is more closely related to the Southern African cheetah than to Saharan cheetah populations. Results of a phylogeographic analysis indicate that the two subspecies diverged between 16,000 and 72,000 years ago. Cynailurus soemmeringii was the scientific name proposed by Leopold Fitzinger in 1855, when he described a live male cheetah brought by Theodor von Heuglin from Sudan’s Bayuda Desert in Kordofan to Tiergarten Schönbrunn in Vienna. The name honoured Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring. Following Fitzinger's description, other naturalists and zoologists described cheetahs from other parts of Northeast Africa that today are considered synonyms of A. j. soemmeringii: For a phylogeographic study, 95 cheetah samples were used, such as feces from wild cheetahs collected in Iran, tissue samples from captive and confiscated cheetahs, hair and bone samples from museum specimens. Study results revealed that the Northeast African cheetah and the Southern African cheetah are genetically different from each other and from the Asiatic cheetah. The Northeast African cheetah probably diverged from Southern African cheetah between 32,200 and 244,000 years ago. Therefore, it was proposed that it deserves a subspecific status. Like its relative to the south in East Africa, the Northeast African cheetah is fairly large. Certain cheetahs can be smaller or medium-sized. Physically, it most resembles the East African cheetah; it has a densely ochraceous spotted coat with relatively thick and coarse fur in comparison to its relatives from eastern and northwestern Africa. The belly of the Northeast African cheetah is distinctly white while its breast and throat can have some black spots similar to the eastern subspecies. However, it is the darkest in fur color. This cheetah has the most widespread and separated black dorsal spots, but smaller than that of the East African cheetah's. In contrasts to the East African cheetah, the Northeast African cheetah has no spots on the hind feet, although some among the Chadian population has hind legs nearly always spotted. This cheetah has distinct white patches around its eyes but the facial spotting can vary from very dense to relatively thin. The Northeast African cheetah has been seen with both white and black tipped tails, although certain cheetahs' tails are white tipped. This subspecies' tail is also notably thick.