“Too closely related for comfort, cheetahs as a species are genetically almost identical. Some 10,000 years ago, cheetah populations were decimated. A smattering of survivors gave rise to those living today—animals whose homogeneity may make them more vulnerable to disease.”

—From "Cheetahs: Ghosts of the Grasslands," December 1999, National Geographic magazine

(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Cheetahs: Ghosts of the Grasslands," December 1999, National Geographic magazine)