🐆
Cheetah
Acinonyx jubatus
Carnivores · Vulnerable
vs
🐺
Spotted hyena
Crocuta crocuta
Carnivores · Least concern
7 clips name both of them
308,117 views between them.
Spotted hyena outweighs Cheetah 1.2× — 63 kg against 50.6 kg. Both figures are averages across males and females.
To scale
Grid at 50 cm
50 cm
1 m
1.5 m
2 m
Silhouettes: PhyloPic (CC0).
Cheetah
0.80 m
at the shoulder
Human
1.70 m
full standing height
for scale
Spotted hyena
0.81 m
at the shoulder
Tale of the tape
Body mass
51 kg
🐆 Cheetah · COMBINE
63 kg
🐺 Spotted hyena · COMBINE
Shoulder height
0.8 m
🐆 Cheetah
0.81 m
🐺 Spotted hyena
Body length
1.49 m
🐆 Cheetah · COMBINE
1.38 m
🐺 Spotted hyena · COMBINE
Top speed
104 km/h
🐆 Cheetah
60 km/h
🐺 Spotted hyena
Bite force
472 N
🐆 Cheetah
773 N
🐺 Spotted hyena
Maximum lifespan
20 yr
🐆 Cheetah · COMBINE
41 yr
🐺 Spotted hyena · COMBINE
Bars are sized against the larger of the two figures. Bite force figures come from individual studies and vary a lot between sources.
Animals caught on camera
Real footage of the animals on this site — hunting, fighting, and getting on with it.
Shared ancestry
The closest group they share is Feliformia (suborder), home to 257 species.
They last shared an ancestor about 22 million years ago.
Estimates range from 20 to 25 million years; the figure above is the middle estimate.
About this estimate
Dates from Upham, Esselstyn & Jetz 2019, PLoS Biology 17:e3000494 (CC0).