The Second-Fastest Land Animal Still Runs From Ghosts
There’s a surprising Pleistocene holdover still running around the American West
If this were a sabertooth, dire wolf, bear, anything else, they would be safe, speeding out of sight before the animal could hope to reach top speed. But this creature is the subject of their nightmares, the cold chill down their spines, the tingle in their haunches urging them to run, run. The pronghorn scatter with alarmed snorts as the cheetahlike predator sprints into their midst.
The gracile cat, lanky and barrel-chested like a greyhound, has selected her target and with focused precision she runs it down. The large feline reaches out one greedy paw but misses. Her claws merely rake through the fluffy rump fur, dislodging white tufts of hair to float down in lazy spirals in the wake of the furious chase. The pronghorn is desperate now, feeling itself being overtaken. It gallops at full tilt, heedless of all but the killer breathing hot on its heels. The hungry cat has at most two or three more seconds of top speed at her disposal before she is exhausted, but she almost has it now! The pronghorn skids over a small rise and……
