Chapter 1 + 2

CHAPTER 1: THE DOG AND THE CHEETAH

 

 

A lone survivor of lions’ wrath, a solo dog needed new mates.

Allies of spots and of blackened backs, were with whom she was bonded by fate.

Black and brown and white is her coat, her kind is the most distinct.

Her whole pack dead, and less dogs to befriend –– the distinct is becoming…… extinct.

–––– Song of the Packless Dog

 

 

It was a bright afternoon over a South African savanna when a cheetah was scouting about with ten unusual companions of his. Whereas most male cheetahs form coalitions upon nearing maturity with two or three or so other male cheetahs, typically including littermates, this cheetah had been found orphaned with no siblings near him nor in proximity to his nest. He was too young to have been able to follow his mother whenever she searched for prey, and one day, she went on what turned out to be her final hunt.

The vulnerable cub was well-guarded from predators. Much waiting was done for his mother to return, during which much searching was done for littermates who might have wandered away from the nest. When the reality of the circumstance was indisputable, the orphaned cheetah was taken off with a…… different upbringing in mind for him.

His rescuer was a painted dog, known also as an African wild dog, who was no ordinary specimen of her species. She was part of a pack of painted dogs that fell victim to a pride of lions, out of which only she survived. Soon afterward, she made a friendly acquaintance in a spotted hyena who introduced her to their clan –– with the clan almost immediately regarding her as an adopted member. In her mind, it was ironic (even if morbidly so) that her pack being killed by one of the painted dogs' two competing alpha predator species had led her to befriend members of the painted dogs' other competing alpha predator species.

She lost her pack, just like the cheetah cub lost his mother and siblings. The difference was that the painted dog was independent enough to venture around until she found new comradery, while the cub being alone would have guaranteed that he would perish. With her volunteering her responsibility for an orphaned cheetah cub, her first thought was surely to find a nest of similarly aged cheetah cubs to sneak him into? And hope the mother would accept him? Most certainly, a cheetah being raised amongst a clan of spotted hyenas would have been far outside the natural order of things? Granted, a painted dog living amongst spotted hyenas may be considered by some to be unnatural, but the wild dog could at least assist them in hunting.

The questions posed in the previous paragraph are valid questions –– but just like the painted dog in this story was an unusual painted dog, the cheetah cub in question was an unusual cheetah. An extremely rare mutation of cheetah exists known as the king cheetah, and that is exactly what the cub was. The king cheetah was classified as their own species for hardly over a decade, up until 1939. Normal cheetahs have yellow coats with small black spots; whereas the coats of king cheetahs have large black blotches of irregular patterns, and three black stripes that run down their backs.

The cub's appearance reminded the painted dog of her species' own irregular coat markings. (Perhaps it will surprise no one that her species gets the name 'painted dog' from the black, brown and white patterns that make up their coats.) Upon discovering the young king cheetah, she honestly did not know that he was a cheetah. His atypical coat markings convinced her that he was a cheetah-leopard hybrid, which left her wildly curious as to the mental states of a cheetah and a leopard who would have wasted their genetics in such a way. She did remind herself that she had presented herself to a male hyena in her adoptive clan –– although given what happened to her pack, was desperation an excuse for her to fall back on? Or did she still have no high ground from which to judge other animals? She decided on the latter.

Anyhow, with her believing that the cub was half cheetah and half leopard, she thought that no cheetah nor leopard mother would accept the offspring of a competing predator species. If the cub's mother had survived, the painted dog would have assumed that any female of whichever species who approached the cub’s nest was his mother. Even if a cheetah or leopard mother killing or rejecting him was not a concern, the painted dog wondered if “cheetah-leopard” cubs having far larger black markings on their bright-colored coats than cheetah cubs and leopard cubs would ruin their camouflage that big cats need later in their lives in order to sneak up toward their prey.

What was the painted dog’s solution to the matter of the orphaned king cheetah? Well, she was not the only member of her adoptive clan who was outside the spotted hyena species. She once attempted to steal a litter of black-backed jackal pups from their parents, but with no success. That did not stop her from helping to protect the pups, nor from sharing her prey with the jackal family.

The jackal family proved themselves worthy of the painted dog admitting into her adoptive clan by alerting her and each other whenever they sighted a cheetah, a hyena, a leopard, a lion, or another painted dog approach their territory. The jackal parents, and any of their offspring who helped raise the next litter, would forage for food and simultaneously aid the painted dog’s clan by keeping watch for lions, other painted dogs, other spotted hyenas, as well as prey whom only the hyenas or the wild dog could bring down. Having the family of black-backed jackals amongst them allowed the painted dog and her hyena companions to rest more, thereby reserving more stamina for hunting. The jackals benefitted in return from the clan’s protection, and from eating their food remains.

The painted dog was a respected member of her adoptive clan, and brought her hyena clanmates and her jackal family together for all of their benefit. Three species prospered from each other who would normally be wary of one another. The hyenas and the jackals would oppose nor question the painted dog’s decision of raising the king cheetah cub as her own offspring. The clan would protect him, and it would be needless to say that a “cheetah-leopard” surrounded by a clan of over seventy spotted hyenas would never kill any of the clan’s cubs (nor any of this particular clan’s jackals) if that “cheetah-leopard” valued their life.

After losing her pack, the painted dog first became an adopted clan member. Afterward, she became a voluntary guardian and provider. In time, she became a mother. The cheetah cub was no less cherished by her than a pup of her own species would have been.

CHAPTER 2: A DIVERSE COALITION

Going back to the beginning of this story, it was a bright afternoon over a South African savanna when the recently matured king cheetah was scouting about with his painted dog mother and nine other unusual companions of his.

Flying above him and his other groupmates was an Egyptian vulture, serving as their eyes in the sky. Cheetahs and Egyptian vultures were both held in high regard in ancient Egypt. Cheetahs were used by ancient Egyptians for hunting, and kept as displays of royalty and wealth. Egyptian vultures were called the ‘pharaoh’s chicken’, and with their white plumage, yellow heads, and black flight feathers, it leaves little to no wonder how they inspired the awe of the Egyptians. From growing up with the company of an Egyptian vulture, the king cheetah had more information in his head about ancient Egypt than a cheetah at the farthest opposite end of the African continent would have any earthly business knowing.

Below the flying Egyptian vulture, walking alongside the king cheetah and the painted dog were three of their other companions. One of them was the brown hyena; another was the aardwolf, an insect-eating hyena; and the third was the also insectivorous bat-eared fox. The other five groupmates, the ring-necked spitting cobras, were coiled around the necks of the brown hyena, the king cheetah, and the painted dog, as well as around the waists of the aardwolf and the fox. The group of eleven was not out recreationally, and they were not just any group of eleven.

The painted dog had expressed her intentions to her “cheetah-leopard” son, for once he reached independent age, of searching for a pack of other painted dogs that would have been small enough for her to have integrated with. A pack with too many painted dogs in it would most likely have killed her. The king cheetah wanted to help his mother in her search for a second pack, and he assigned different roles to each participant in his search group. The Egyptian vulture kept watch from the sky, as mentioned.

• The brown hyena was the "jaws" of the group, able to fend off any cheetah, leopard, hostile painted dog, or other brown hyena. Brown hyenas are smaller than spotted hyenas, and travel more often without clanmates, so he was not overly intimidating to the point of scaring off any painted dogs whom the group was hoping to find.

• For the far greater threats posed by lions, spotted hyena clans, and hostile painted dog packs, the ring-necked spitting cobras served as the defense. Seeing the hoods of five spitting cobras standing in every which direction around the group would have sent a pride of lions running away if they got too close. Spitting cobras can shoot blinding venom into a predator's eyes from a ten-foot distance.

• The bat-eared fox was the "ears" of the group, with ears five inches tall that serve his insectivorous species by detecting termites up to twelve inches underground. He would obviously have been the first amongst the group to hear a surprise attack coming, or hear painted dog vocalizations from a distance, allowing him to have alerted the group on immediate notice if need be.

• The aardwolf did not have any specific capabilities for the group's benefit, but with a brown hyena, a "cheetah-leopard" and a painted dog in the group, an insect-eating small mammal besides the bat-eared fox would have served to make the group appear more "inclusive" to any non-threatening painted dogs.

The selection of groupmates seems quite strategic for such an animal as the male cheetah who is hardly known to affiliate with any creature outside their species. (Female cheetahs are solitary, aside from mating and raising cubs.) How did the king cheetah come to have such extensive company apart from his painted dog mother, their black-backed jackal family, and their spotted hyena clan? Which was already more company than normal for a cheetah?

It all started with the king cheetah being told during his upbringing that he was the offspring of a cheetah and a leopard, hence him being called a ‘cheetah-leopard’. He eventually attracted the attention of the Egyptian vulture, who was the only creature who did not believe that he was a cheetah-leopard. Perhaps strangely, he believed that the king cheetah was a hybrid of a cheetah and a striped hyena (given the stripes on the king cheetah’s back,) despite the fact that striped hyenas are not native to southern Africa. Striped hyenas, like cheetahs and Egyptian vultures, were kept by ancient Egyptians as symbols of power.

The Egyptian vulture was fascinated by the king cheetah’s coat markings, his relationship with his hyena clan, and also by his relationship with the clan’s jackal family. In ancient Egyptian religion, Anubis is the god of death, mummification, and the afterlife, depicted with the head of an African wolf –– which was classified previously as the African golden jackal, but is nonetheless more comparable in size and social behavior to jackals than the species is to European and North American wolves. It is speculated that the carcass-scavenging habits of jackals and African wolves (not to be confused with Ethiopian wolves) made them attributed by the ancient Egyptians to their god of death.

The king cheetah learned much from his vulture friend about ancient Egyptian reverence of various animals, including hyenas and jackals. Among the other things that the vulture taught him was that ancient Egyptians generally admired felids more than canids for their greater independence, contrary to many people in other societies around the world who would prefer domestic dogs over domestic cats for being more social animals. However, on account of big cats being stealth predators, and the “cheetah-leopard” having been raised to believe that he was camouflage-impaired due to his bright-colored coat having black markings that were abnormally large for a cheetah or a leopard, his confidence was undermined by the thought of himself being a functionally insignificant predator.

Naturally, the king cheetah having been raised by a painted dog amongst a clan of hyenas and a family of jackals, combined with the Egyptian vulture educating him on animals who were treasured in ancient Egyptian civilization, had made for a highly curious cat. He grew up very observant of all the creatures around him, whether among his clan or complete strangers. He also thought that his observations would perhaps help him discover his place in the Animal Kingdom. After all, what animal would have a stronger identity crisis than a “cheetah-leopard” who was raised by a painted dog amongst spotted hyenas, but who lacks a cheetah’s stealth, a leopard’s strength, a painted dog’s hunting stamina, and a hyena’s jaw power?

Among the many things that the king cheetah observed was the hunting advantage that spotted hyenas have over lion prides, which makes spotted hyenas more successful predators. Since spotted hyenas are much smaller predators than lions, they have the advantage of one member from a hunting group being able to non-alarmingly approach a herd of ungulates (such as wildebeest and zebras) in order to assess the oldest or weakest individual for the hunting group to chase and take down.

The king cheetah also noticed the hunting advantage that his painted dog mother had whenever she was alone or with the black-backed jackals. Antelope either did not fear a painted dog without packmates, or did not fear a painted dog who was unusually tolerant of having a family of jackals around them. He also observed the method by which the Egyptian vulture preyed upon ostrich eggs. Egyptian vultures use stones to break open ostrich eggs, making them one of the only African bird of prey species currently known to use tools.

A hunter as supposedly disadvantaged as the “cheetah-leopard” would need all the luck they can get in order to thrive. As the king cheetah matured, he started to form a coalition unlike the standard cheetah coalition.

 

* * *

 

As explained previously, the king cheetah had the aardwolf, the bat-eared fox, the brown hyena, the Egyptian vulture, and the ring-necked cobras in his search group as they scouted about for a pack of painted dogs suitable for his mother to have joined. The cheetah had assembled the different species since his adolescence.

He had taken figurative notes from the hunting techniques of the painted dog and their spotted hyena clan, and created his own multi-species hunting strategies. He did assist his clan in hunting, but he and his mother always ate after the high-ranking female hyenas. With the king cheetah hunting his own prey, he and his mother both enjoyed fresher meat.

• The brown hyena was involved in one of the cheetah's devised hunting strategies. With brown hyenas being a weaker species than spotted hyenas, the brown hyena was more non-suspectable to ungulates, allowing him to casually walk up behind an ungulate to deliver a bone-cracking bite to one of their hind legs. The wounded ungulate was then vulnerable to the cheetah delivering a killing bite to the throat, with enough meat being provided for the hyena was well.

• The aardwolf and the bat-eared fox were both settled in abandoned burrows near the cheetah's clan. To all of their benefit, the cheetah formulated a hunting tactic that involved him walking around with either the aardwolf or the fox following him and continuously "biting" at him. An ungulate would be put off guard by the cheetah supposedly allowing a 'termite-licker' to push him around, which allowed him to get close enough for a guaranteed kill. In return, the aardwolf and the fox would feed on the insects they found on any of the scraps left by the cheetah.

• The cheetah was fascinated by spitting cobras for their ability to ward off threats vastly larger than themselves without so much as a single bite from their fangs. He was also impressed by the ring-necked spitting cobras' technique of playing dead in order to kill prey more easily, which he used to his own hunting advantage by carrying "dead" cobras in his mouth. The cheetah "eating" prey as small as a cobra was not quickly regarded as a threat by an ungulate, which allowed him to get close enough for the cobra to slither out of his jaws, permitting him to take down the ungulate. For their cooperation, the ring-necked cobras were provided mice and toads hunted by the aardwolf and the bat-eared fox on the cheetah's instructions.

The king cheetah never had any luck, even with the support of his search group, in finding a pack of painted dogs for his mother to have run off with. His mother was content regardless with having the company of her hyena clanmates, her jackal family, her cheetah son’s companions, and her cheetah son who chose to stay around their clan.

A cheetah-leopard hybrid, like the king cheetah was believed to have been, would not have had the genetic purity to procreate; and it was unlikely that a “half-cheetah” with a “camouflage-disabling” coat like the king cheetah’s would have been accepted into a coalition of male cheetahs. The cheetah, as far as he could tell, had no legitimate nor sensical reason to abandon the companionship, hunting aid, and security of his clan.

Even though the group never found new packmates for the king cheetah’s mother, their time searching was never time wasted. Finding food was just as good as finding painted dogs, and the king cheetah had every one of his hunting strategies at his disposal with the aardwolf, the bat-eared fox, the brown hyena, and the ring-necked cobras with him. Of course, having his painted dog mother accompanying them made prey all the easier to take down.

Alternatively, the brown hyena could use his sense of smell to trace a carcass or a fresh kill. If it was a decaying carcass, he and the Egyptian vulture could scavenge while the aardwolf and the bat-eared fox ate at the insects. If it was a fresh kill made by a cheetah or a leopard, he could steal the prey for himself, the Egyptian vulture, the king cheetah, and the painted dog to devour. (The act of an animal stealing food from another may seem dishonorable to some humans, but for a wild creature driven by hunger, there is no such thing as a fairly earned meal.)

 

* * *

 

During the bright afternoon detailed earlier, the king cheetah and the painted dog were being entertained from hearing the conversation between their fox and hyena companions about the ecosystem’s largest creature, the elephant, having a nasal appendage as lengthy as the neck of the ecosystem’s tallest creature, the giraffe. The theory was proposed that if a giraffe chokes, the elephant could use their trunk to push the lodged food down the giraffe’s throat, saving the giraffe from suffocating. As unlikely as that theory was to be tested, the exercise of bizarre thought humored the cheetah and his mother.

The ring-necked cobras were more silent during the group’s outings, content with simply observing the natural scenery surrounding them as they were coiled around their mammalian groupmates. (Listening to the fox and the hyenas discuss their elephant-trunks-and-choking-giraffes theory was also amusing to them, however.) The cobras enjoyed being out of their dirt burrows, viewing their native landscape without concern of being hunted and preyed upon by honey badgers, mongooses nor snake-eagles.

The aardwolf and the bat-eared fox, despite being the smallest mammals in the group, were the most nonchalant about premature death. In an inescapable situation involving such a threat as a baboon, a big cat, a large hyena, or a painted dog, there would likely not be much that one could do to save themselves from being killed if they were a canid or hyena with a mouth for consuming ants instead of tearing flesh. Being at peace with the fact that they were puny, the aardwolf dreamed of her corpse being eaten by a lion, whereas the fox preferred his to be eaten by a honey badger. The aardwolf wanted her body to leave the earth as prey ‘fit for a king’, while the fox wanted to go out as a feast for a small carnivore instead of a side dish for a large predator.

Suddenly, the bat-eared fox picked up the sound of an intense scuffle a distance away from the group. They already ended their day’s search for other painted dogs, so they could redirect their attention towards finding food. The fox’s five-inch ears did not detect the cries of painted dogs nor spotted hyenas, and the sound was of an ungulate being pinned to the ground and struggling to save their life, so he made out that the noise was coming from a big cat attempting to kill prey by the throat.

It was unknown if a cheetah, a leopard, or a lion was doing the killing. The group began making their way towards the location of the noise, with the Egyptian vulture flying ahead to identify whether the big cat was a lion or one from whom they could steal the prey.

The bat-eared fox soon heard a long roar as they made their way towards the site of the noise, which ruled out the likelihood of a cheetah. A leopard would still have been small enough for the brown hyena to have chased off.

When the group entered close proximity to the scene of the scuffle, the Egyptian vulture flew back down to ground level to notify them that the big cat involved was, indeed, a leopard. He also informed them that the situation was vastly different from what they were expecting: the leopard was lethally impaled by the horns of an antelope whom she was trying to kill.

The leopard was evidently female because two leopard cubs had just been orphaned. They just recently turned old enough to accompany their mother on her hunts, but they were quickly left vulnerable without her protection.

The king cheetah was mindful so as to not intimidate the defenseless cubs, given the larger sizes of himself, the brown hyena, and the painted dog compared to the sizes of the aardwolf and the bat-eared fox. He had the aardwolf slowly approach the cubs, with the rest of the group keeping a distance behind her. He did not want her to scare the cubs by walking towards them upright, so he instructed her to keep low to the ground as she made her way towards the cubs.

The aardwolf was told not to go right up to them, but to roll onto her side when she entered close proximity to them. After she did that, the leopard cubs waited for fifteen to twenty seconds before one of them curiously approached her. The other cub quickly followed suit, and the cubs began playing around with the small hyena.

The king cheetah then instructed the bat-eared fox to gradually approach the cubs while keeping low to the ground. The cubs shifted their curiosity towards the fox when he got close enough to them, after which the cheetah and the painted dog began slowly crawling toward them. The brown hyena and the ring-necked spitting cobras stood guard, with the Egyptian vulture keeping watch from the highest perch of the nearest tree.

While it may seem noble of the group to have attempted to save the orphaned cubs, it should be pointed out that it was not a charitable act. There was a specific factor that drew the king cheetah’s interest towards the leopard cubs. One of them was melanistic –– or in other words, a black leopard.

Black leopards are extremely rare in Africa, whilst their populations in Asia are relatively prevalent. Their melanistic appearance benefits them immensely in the Asian continent, where a lot of camouflage is provided for them by the shadows of forest trees. Black leopards do not have that hunting advantage in much of Africa’s landscape, and reportings of black leopards in the African continent have currently only been documented in Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa.

Upon seeing the leopard cubs, the king cheetah was willing to bet his life on his conviction that he was not just a “cheetah-leopard,” but the hybrid of a cheetah and a black leopard. He thought that was the more sensical theory, due to his black coat markings being exponentially larger than those of a cheetah or a normal leopard.

Since black leopards are so scarce in Africa, the king cheetah believed that he was a half-brother of the orphaned black leopard (and of the other leopard cub.) He normally would not have concerned himself with any orphaned creature whom he found, but he felt obligated to rescue the two leopard cubs who he thought were related to him; and since he supposedly could not procreate, on account of being an alleged hybrid, he was not about to pass up the opportunity to raise his “half-siblings.”

The king cheetah and the painted dog waited for both of the cubs to tire before they grasped them with their mouths, carrying them off to be raised under the protection of their clan –– that is, if the matriarch would agree to her clan providing the protection.

 

 

 

A felid was born of blotches and stripes, found by the Packless Dog.

A cheetah’s speed, but no leopard’s might –– a hereditary flaw.

A coat of yellow and too much black, the felid was sure to starve.

With help from the Dog and from her clan, his survival odds would enlarge.

–––– Song of the “Cheetah-Leopard”