Cheetahs can change direction mid-air when hunting prey. The cheetah is the world's fastest land mammal, and can run at speeds of up to 113 kph [70 mph]. In one stride, a cheetah can cover up to 8 m [26 ft]. They don't roar, as the other big cats do. Instead, they purr.

A black panther is really just the melanistic color variant of any big cat species. Black panthers in Asia and Africa are leopards (Panthera pardus), and those in the Americas are black jaguars (Panthera onca).

A tiger's skin is striped like its fur. A tiger's stripes are like fingerprints—no two animals have the same pattern. They're excellent swimmers and do not avoid water. They've been hunted for their skin, bones, and other body parts, for use in traditional Chinese medicine.

The puma (Puma concolor) goes by numerous names, some of which include panther, mountain lion, cougar, and catamount. After humans, pumas have the largest range of any mammal in the Western Hemisphere.

Caracals can leap higher than 3 m [9.8 ft] and catch birds in mid-air.

The Iriomote cat (Prionailurus bengalensis iriomotensis) is a subspecies of the leopard cat (not the same as a leopard) that only lives on the Japanese island of Iriomote. It's listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List, with fewer than 250 adult individuals remaining in the wild.

The strongest climber among the big cats, a leopard can carry prey twice its weight up a tree. The leopard is the most widespread of all big cats.

Long, muscular hind legs enable snow leopards to leap 7 times their own body length in a single bound.

The Amur leopard is one of the most endangered animals in the world.

The ocelot's fastest recorded speed was 61 kph [38 mph]. An estimated 800,000 to 1.5 million are found worldwide. In the United States, only about 30 ocelots remain in an isolated population in southeast Texas.

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a/n: most of these facts are from the official National Geographic website.