Research overview: biogeography of the cheetah lineage across continents

This overview examines the evolutionary geography of the cheetah lineage and its New World relatives. Molecular and fossil evidence indicate that the cheetah-puma group has a complex transatlantic history, with the living cheetah, Acinonyx, in the Old World and the extinct cheetah-like Miracinonyx in North America, both linked to the puma lineage. The survey reviews competing reconstructions of where this group originated and how it dispersed, including the once-popular but now-revised idea of a New World cradle for cheetahs, and how convergence complicates reading relationships from anatomy alone. It discusses how ancient DNA resolved Miracinonyx as a puma relative rather than a true cheetah, what this implies about repeated evolution of cursorial cats, and how the lineage's biogeography illustrates the intertwined histories of Old and New World felids.