Cat Fact #1! Kitty Claws – Specifically, the Cheetah's.

There is only one kind of cat that cannot retract its claws - the Cheetah. This is because for a cheetah, that's really not the point. They rely on their speed and their teeth rather than power and claws to take down their prey. Daquan and his friends may go from 0 to 100 real quick, but a cheetah can go from 0 to 60MPH (96 KM/H) in three seconds, and reach a top recorded speed of 75 MPH (120 KM/H). As anyone involved with performance vehicles will tell you, to get acceleration you need an engine capable of doing it, and you need traction. This is where the Cheetah's claws come in - claws dig into the ground, giving near-perfect traction for acceleration and cornering.

The end result is that this bluntens their claws in a similar way to a dog's. As a side-effect, they are unable to climb trees vertically as many other cats (big and small) do.

When a Cheetah hunts, it spends 95% of its time almost totally immobile, moving only stealthily and trying to remain unseen. When it spots a prey animal it thinks it can bring down, it makes a burst of energy and sprints after it. They need to be fairly sure of success, since this is going to cost a huge amount of energy - to go back to the performance cars analogy, a top fuel dragster will go through five gallons of fuel over a very short race - normally only a quarter mile (402m), completed in 4.9 seconds. And it's a very short race for the Cheetah too, since most of its prey is caught or given up on within a minute.

The traction of the Cheetah isn't just used for speed and acceleration of course - Cheetah have to be able to follow their prey, and their preferred prey types, antelopes and gazelles and the like, are renowned for gracefulness and nimbleness. So when their prey turns a sixty-degree corner at forty miles an hour, it wouldn't do for the Cheetah to be left sliding sideways through the dust. Claws dig in here as well, the long tail swings around as a counterbalance, and dinner doesn't get away.

On the other hand, there's the dewclaw, which is fully retractable, and is used for the same purposes as you would expect - it comes out of the top of their paw instead of the front, between their toes. Slightly larger than its other claws, the dewclaw isn't always used in combat, but when it is, it's deadly.