Cheetahs are big, wild cats in the everyday sense, but they are not “big cats” in the strict scientific sense used for lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars.

Quick Scoop

  • In casual language, cheetahs are absolutely big cats: they are large predators in the cat family (Felidae) and top-level hunters in their ecosystems.
  • In biology, the term Big Cat usually refers to members of the genus Panthera (lion, tiger, jaguar, leopard), which share a special throat structure that lets them roar.
  • Cheetahs belong to a different genus, Acinonyx , cannot roar, and instead purr, chirp, and meow, which groups them closer to small cats in vocal anatomy.

Why The Confusion?

  • Many wildlife sites describe cheetahs as “big cats” because they are large, fast apex predators and often discussed alongside lions and leopards.
  • Strictly speaking, some conservation and education groups note that cheetahs are not Big Cats in the “Latin sense” (not in Panthera), so they sit in a kind of gray zone between big and small cat categories.

Roar vs. Purr Thing

  • Classic “Big Cats” have a flexible hyoid (part of the throat) that allows a deep roar, as heard in lions and tigers.
  • Cheetahs have a fixed hyoid and divided vocal cords, so they purr continuously and chirp but cannot roar, which is why many biologists do not class them as Big Cats.

Closest Cat Cousins

  • Cheetahs are genetically closer to the group of smaller purring cats (including things like cougars/mountain lions) than to roaring Big Cats such as lions and leopards.
  • Like those “larger small cats,” cheetahs share traits such as purring and more lightly built bodies optimized for speed rather than heavy, roaring power.

One-Line Takeaway

If you are chatting with friends, it is fine to call cheetahs big cats, but in zoology class the stricter answer is: cheetahs are large felines, yet not true “Big Cats” of the Panthera group.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.