A small population of animals (60 animals) preserved in the sparsely populated areas of Iran. Iranian cheetah subspecies differs from the African slightly: it is shorter legs, powerful neck and a thick skin. The main reasons for this population reduction - reducing the number of wild ungulates and persecution by humans. Because of his way of hunting, they prefer open spaces: savannas, deserts, etc.
National pet Iranians - cheetah living in polunevole in Miyandasht that the North Khorasan.
Cheetahs, apparently almost extinct during the last ice age, going through the "bottleneck". Existing now cheetahs - close relatives, so they have signs of genetic degeneration caused by incest. For example, cheetahs have very high rates of infant mortality: more than half of the babies die before the year.
The effect of bottlenecks affected the viability of the species: in cheetahs increased sensitivity to disease and various deviations, leading to a decrease in fertility.
Bottleneck effect - reducing the gene pool (ie, genetic diversity) of the population as a result of the passage of time, during which for various reasons is a critical decline in its population, a reduction of genetic diversity leads to a change in relative and absolute frequencies of alleles.
In Iran, the very difficult political situation, but it is still necessary to create a sanctuary in Iran. Otherwise we will lose this subspecies of cheetah. The fastest land animal.
