🐆
Cheetah
Acinonyx jubatus
Carnivores · Vulnerable
vs
🐾
Golden jackal
Canis aureus
Carnivores · Least concern
One clip names both of them
40,414 views between them.
Cheetah outweighs Golden jackal 4.6× — 50.6 kg against 11 kg. Both figures are averages across males and females.
Tale of the tape
Body mass
51 kg
🐆 Cheetah · COMBINE
11 kg
🐾 Golden jackal · COMBINE
Shoulder height
0.8 m
🐆 Cheetah
no figure yet
🐾 Golden jackal
Body length
1.49 m
🐆 Cheetah · COMBINE
0.94 m
🐾 Golden jackal · COMBINE
Top speed
104 km/h
🐆 Cheetah
no figure yet
🐾 Golden jackal
Bite force
472 N
🐆 Cheetah
no figure yet
🐾 Golden jackal
Maximum lifespan
20 yr
🐆 Cheetah · COMBINE
19 yr
🐾 Golden jackal · 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 Carnivora (order), home to 728 species.
They last shared an ancestor about 39 million years ago.
Estimates range from 32 to 45 million years; the figure above is the middle estimate.
About this estimate
Dates from Upham, Esselstyn & Jetz 2019, PLoS Biology 17:e3000494 (CC0).