American Cheetah

American cheetahs were speed-hunting cats that evolved independently of African cheetahs, achieving similar body plans through convergent evolution. They hunted North American prairies until their extinction roughly 10,000 years ago. Their disappearance left pronghorn antelopes with speed capabilities that no surviving predator requires—evolutionary ghosts running from cheetahs that no longer exist.

The American cheetah's extinction reveals the fragility of extreme speed specialization. When Pleistocene prey populations crashed, American cheetahs couldn't pivot to different prey like more generalist predators could. Their bodies were too optimized for speed; they lacked the versatility to hunt slower prey in different habitats. African cheetahs survive today through conservation intervention, not competitive superiority.

The business parallel is specialized strategies that work until market conditions shift. American cheetahs are like technology companies optimized for specific market conditions—early search engines, video rental chains, or point-of-sale systems. Extreme optimization for current conditions creates competitive advantage today but extinction risk when conditions change. The American cheetah's convergent evolution with African cheetahs shows that similar strategies can evolve independently, but similar vulnerabilities emerge regardless of origin. Speed specialization is powerful but fragile whether you're African or American.