Research overview: the puma lineage uniting puma, jaguarundi and cheetah

One of the most counterintuitive results of felid molecular phylogenetics was that the cheetah, long treated as a unique outlier, belongs to a New World puma lineage alongside the puma and the jaguarundi. This overview explains the genetic evidence linking these three species, the biogeographic implications of an American origin for the cheetah lineage with subsequent dispersal into Africa and Asia, and the relevance of extinct American cheetah-like cats of the genus Miracinonyx. It discusses how convergent cursorial adaptations misled earlier morphological classifications and how the corrected phylogeny informs cheetah conservation and comparative study. It underscores that recognizing the cheetah as a specialized New World lineage transformed how scientists interpret its unique anatomy, its low diversity, and its evolutionary relationship to the puma and jaguarundi.