Research overview: Acinonyx pardinensis, the giant Eurasian cheetah

This overview surveys Acinonyx pardinensis, a large extinct cheetah that ranged across Eurasia during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. Considerably bigger than the living cheetah, sometimes approaching the size of a lion or leopard, this giant cheetah retained cursorial adaptations for fast pursuit while reaching a body mass that raises questions about its top speed and hunting style. The survey reviews its fossil record from Europe to Asia, debates over whether its larger size compromised the extreme sprinting of its modern relative, and its relationships to living and other extinct cheetahs. It discusses what Acinonyx pardinensis reveals about the evolution and former diversity of the cheetah lineage in the Old World, paralleling the independent New World cheetah-like cats, and how its decline fits the broader loss of large carnivores in the Pleistocene.