Cheetahs occupy an unusual spot in the predator hierarchy. Some scientists classify them as apex predators because of their ecological role and body size, while others argue they function more like mesopredators, since lions, hyenas, and leopards routinely kill cheetahs and steal their food. The answer depends on how you define “apex predator” and which ecosystem you’re looking at.
What Makes a Predator “Apex”
An apex predator isn’t simply the fastest or most dramatic hunter. Ecologically, it’s a predator that sits at the top of its food chain, with no regular predators of its own. These animals keep prey populations in check and suppress smaller predators, a cascading effect that shapes entire ecosystems and promotes biodiversity.
Research published in the journal Oikos proposes a more precise definition: apex predators are distinguished by the ability to self-regulate their own population density. They reproduce slowly, invest heavily in each offspring, maintain large territories, and sometimes practice infanticide or reproductive suppression. These traits naturally keep their numbers low. The study identified a body mass threshold of about 34 kg (75 lbs) as the dividing line. Above that weight, carnivores tend to be self-regulating apex predators. Below it, they’re extrinsically regulated mesopredators, meaning their populations are controlled by outside forces like larger predators or food scarcity.
The Case for Cheetahs as Apex Predators
Cheetahs weigh around 30 to 65 kg (roughly 65 to 145 lbs), placing them above the 34 kg threshold. They reproduce relatively slowly compared to smaller carnivores, invest years in raising cubs, and maintain large home ranges. Genomic research published in Molecular Ecology explicitly classifies cheetahs as apex predators, noting that they “serve important ecosystem functions” in that role and that their survival is key to healthy ecosystems.
In habitats where lions and hyenas are absent or rare, cheetahs genuinely function as top predators. They regulate prey populations of medium-sized antelope like impala, springbok, and blesbok, and no other predator routinely threatens them. In parts of southern Africa, on private reserves, or in regions where larger carnivores have been removed, cheetahs fill the apex role without question.
The Case Against: Life Under Lions and Hyenas
In ecosystems like the Serengeti, the picture looks very different. Lions kill both adult and young cheetahs. Spotted hyenas and leopards kill cheetah cubs. Data from Tanzania shows that 68% of cheetah cub mortality is caused by these three larger competitors. Lions don’t just kill cheetahs directly; interspecific killing by lions may be limiting cheetah population density across the Serengeti entirely.
This is the opposite of what happens to a true apex predator. Lions and spotted hyenas control cheetah numbers from above, which is the textbook definition of extrinsic regulation, the hallmark of a mesopredator. In these shared landscapes, cheetahs behave like subordinate predators in several telling ways:
- They hunt during the day to avoid nocturnal lions and hyenas, though recent research suggests moonlit nights also offer favorable hunting conditions that sometimes outweigh the risk.
- They avoid larger predators in space and time. Camera-trap studies show cheetahs actively avoiding lions through temporal separation, wild dogs through spatial separation, and leopards through short-term avoidance at shared sites.
- They eat fast. Cheetahs consume kills quickly because they lack the size and strength to defend a carcass from hyenas or lions that show up to steal it.
- They target smaller prey. Cheetahs prefer prey in the 14 to 135 kg range, while lions hunt prey from 32 to over 600 kg. Two-thirds of a cheetah’s diet consists of juveniles and newborns of larger species, while lions eat mostly full-grown adults.
A Weaker Bite, a Lighter Build
Cheetahs are built for speed, not power. Their bite force measures about 472 Newtons, compared to 773 Newtons for a spotted hyena and 1,768 Newtons for a lion. Adjusted for body size, a cheetah’s bite is actually proportionally strong (its bite force quotient of 119 slightly exceeds a lion’s 112), but in absolute terms, it’s far outmatched. A cheetah simply cannot overpower a hyena in a confrontation over food, let alone a lion.
Their hunting success rate also reflects this lighter build. Fewer than 40% of cheetah hunts end in a kill, despite being the fastest land animal. Speed alone doesn’t guarantee a meal, and the energy cost of failed sprints adds up, especially when successful hunts are sometimes stolen by larger competitors before the cheetah finishes eating.
The Real Answer: It Depends on Context
Ecologists sometimes note that the largest predator in any given ecosystem gets labeled the apex predator, even if that same species is a mesopredator elsewhere. A cheetah in a lion-free reserve in Namibia is functionally apex. A cheetah sharing the Serengeti with lions, hyenas, and leopards is not. It’s subordinate, its population is externally controlled, and its behavior is shaped by constant avoidance of dominant competitors.
The most accurate description is that cheetahs are large carnivores with the biological traits of an apex predator (slow reproduction, large territories, low population density) but the ecological reality of a mesopredator in most of their range. They sit in a gray zone: too big and too important to dismiss as a mid-level predator, but too vulnerable to lions and hyenas to claim the top spot where those species are present. In the African savanna’s pecking order, lions and spotted hyenas are the true apex predators, and cheetahs operate in the spaces they leave behind.