The extinct American 'cheetah' was not a cheetah after all

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Add as preferred source An artistic rendering of two Miracinonyx , one in Beringia preying mainly on fish and one in the Lower 48 feeding on pronghorn antelope. Credit: Julius Csotonyi With their slender bodies and long front legs, Miracinonyx trumani—often nicknamed the "American cheetah"—was long thought to be a North American analog of the African big cat. But in a new study published in the journal Current Biology , researchers reveal that the extinct cat was more closely related to pumas. Some populations living near the Arctic preyed almost exclusively on fish, challenging the long-held assumption that these "cheetahs" chased fast-running prey, such as pronghorns.