Cheetahs of the Serengeti Plains: Group Living in an Asocial Species

Caro's long-term Serengeti study is the definitive account of cheetah behavioral ecology, with deep treatment of hunting and predation. He quantified hunting success rates, prey selection by Thomson's gazelle age and sex, the energetics of high-speed pursuit, and the heavy costs cheetahs pay through kleptoparasitism and cub predation by lions and hyenas. The work showed how anti-predator vigilance at kills, prey choice and habitat use are shaped by the constant threat from dominant carnivores. By linking foraging decisions to competition and predation risk, the monograph is essential for understanding how a subordinate cursorial predator survives within a dominant-predator guild, and it grounds much subsequent intraguild and kleptoparasitism research.