Research overview: does hunting raise cheetah body temperature to a limiting point?

A long-standing hypothesis held that cheetahs abandon chases because sprinting overheats them, storing heat faster than they can lose it. This overview examines the evidence, including studies that implanted body-temperature loggers in hunting cheetahs and found that core temperature rose only modestly during the chase itself, with larger increases appearing after a successful kill. That pattern shifted attention from a simple thermal-limit explanation toward stress-related hyperthermia tied to the kill and to vigilance against kleptoparasites. Researchers reconcile these results with the genuine heat produced by anaerobic effort and the cat lightly insulated build. Why it matters: it shows how an intuitive textbook story can be overturned by direct telemetry, and it links sprint physiology, thermoregulation, and the behavioural ecology of a predator that often loses kills to larger competitors.