A 1973 study looking at captive cheetahs running on a treadmill found evidence that these sprinters abandoned hunts because they got too hot. That gave birth to the idea that the animals' hunting success rate was due to the fact that their motors ran a little too hot. About 40 to 50 percent of cheetah hunts end in a kill, which is on the lower end of success rates among African big cats.

"It became a popular story that got applied to free-ranging cheetah," said Robyn Hetem, a biologist at the University of Witwatersrand in Parktown, South Africa. "Most of our guides will tell you this when you come to Africa and see cheetah."

Not so fast, says a