Top 5 Fastest Land Animals
Published:Quick, what are the five fastest land animals in the world? Don’t know? Check out our list of Top 5 Fastest Land Animals to find out! *For the sake of this list, we have focused only on top speed on land.
1) Cheetah
- Can accelerate from 0 to 96.6 km/h (60.0 mph) in under three seconds
- When sprinting, cheetahs spend more time in the air than on the ground
- Limited endurance: most cheetahs run for only 60 seconds at a time
- Fastest land-animal, fastest mammal, fastest feline
- 112–120 km/h (70–75 mph)
2) Pronghorn
- 88.5 km/h (55.0 mph)
- The fastest animal over long distances
- Can run 56 km/h for 6 km (35 mph for 4 mi)
- 67 km/h for 1.6 km (42 mph for 1 mi)
- 88.5 km/h for .8 km (55 mph for .5 mi)
3) Springbok
- An antelope of the gazelle tribe in southern Africa
- Can make long jumps and sharp turns while running
- Poor long-distance runners
- Often eaten by faster cheetahs
- 88 km/h (54.5 mph)
4) Wildebeest
- An antelope, exists as two species: the blue wildebeest and the black wildebeest
- Both are extremely fast runners
- Their speed helps them evade predators
- Better at endurance running than at sprinting
- 80.5 km/h (50.0 mph)
5) Lion
- Can only reach top speed for short bursts of time
- Can be highly exhausting for the lion
- They sneak up on their prey before running to minimize running distance
- Second largest cat in the world, they are surprisingly fast for their size
- 80.5 km/h (50.0 mph)
