Talk:Fastest animals

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Fastest animals article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1

Guild of Copy Editors

This article was copy edited by Dthomsen8, a member of the Guild of Copy Editors, on 5 September 2013.Guild of Copy EditorsWikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsTemplate:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsGuild of Copy Editors articles

Amphibians and Reptiles Low‑importance

	Fastest animals is part of WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles, an effort to make Wikipedia a standardized, informative, comprehensive and easy-to-use resource for amphibians and reptiles. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.Amphibians and ReptilesWikipedia:WikiProject Amphibians and ReptilesTemplate:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptilesamphibian and reptile articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Birds Low‑importance

Fastest animals is part of WikiProject Birds, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative and easy-to-use ornithological resource. If you would like to participate, visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. Please do not substitute this template.BirdsWikipedia:WikiProject BirdsTemplate:WikiProject Birdsbird articles

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

WikiProject Birds To-do:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : Endemic birds of Papua New Guinea (more)
Cleanup : Bullfinch • Vesper sparrow • Bird flight • Bird bath (more)
Copyedit : Plushcap • Magpie duck • Saker falcon (more)
Expand : Phalarope • Nidicolous • Gouldian finch • Cathartes • Cnemophilidae • Avian malaria (more)
NPOV : Debeaking • Driven grouse shooting • Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital (more)
Stubs : Cathartiformes • Semiplumbeous hawk • Rainbow-bearded Thornbill • Sunda scops owl (more)
Update : Coal tit • Scottish crossbill • New Caledonian lorikeet • Operation Migration (more)
Verify : Argus (bird) • Blyth's frogmouth • Nik Borrow • Pytilia • Fregata • Chestnut-headed tesia • Darter • Pallid scops owl • Starling (more)
Wikify : Ninox boobook ocellata • The Institute for Bird Populations (more)
Other : Add photos to bird articles needing photos (search Flickr for free images). Add taxonomic authorities to genus articles.

More outstanding tasks at the project's cleanup listing, Category:Birds articles needing attention, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/Todo.

Fishes Low‑importance

	Fish portal This article is part of WikiProject Fishes, an attempt to organise a detailed guide to all topics related to Fish taxa. To participate, you can edit the attached article, or contribute further at WikiProject Fishes. This project is an offshoot of the WikiProject Tree of Life.FishesWikipedia:WikiProject FishesTemplate:WikiProject FishesFishes articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Insects Low‑importance

	Insects portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Insects, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of insects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.InsectsWikipedia:WikiProject InsectsTemplate:WikiProject InsectsInsects articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Mammals Low‑importance

	Mammals portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mammals, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of mammal-related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MammalsWikipedia:WikiProject MammalsTemplate:WikiProject Mammalsmammal articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Articles for creation

	This article was reviewed by member(s) of WikiProject Articles for creation. The project works to allow users to contribute quality articles and media files to the encyclopedia and track their progress as they are developed. To participate, please visit the project page for more information.Articles for creationWikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creationTemplate:WikiProject Articles for creationAfC articles
	This article was accepted on 6 February 2012 by reviewer Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs).

Incomplete?

I just read an article that the serval is among the fastest animals at 75-80 km/h but it's not on the list. Then I started looking for other top-lists and found a couple other animals which are missing from here. Eg. http://dinoanimals.com/animals/the-fastest-animals-in-the-world-top-100/

Fejesjoco (talk) 19:54, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Smithsonian channel has also claimed that Servals are second fastest cat after cheeath with 50 mph top speed. There are also other claims of caracals having 80km/h top speed. Ishan87 (talk) 14:29, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Adding deer

Hello, could deer (i.e. red deer) be added to this list? According to this^[1] article different types of deers can reach up to 60-65 km/h. Sauer202 (talk) 16:13, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Top 12 Fastest Land Animals In The World"Both roe deer and moose can run upto 60 km/h (37 mph), while the world's third fastest deer - the red deer - can reach 65 km/h"

Guerrouj and Masterkova

Should the speed of Guerrouj and Masterkova be in the article as it is now under the mammal section? 92.19.189.218 (talk) 19:39, 9 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As opposed to?... Not in the article at all? Under some other (or stand-alone) section? What are you seeking?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:07, 15 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Remove. That section discusses "maximum speed". Long-distance events are not usually know for producing the fastest miles per hour, unlike the 100m. 92.19.183.122 (talk) 18:05, 26 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Remove. Usain Bolt set a maximum speed record during the 100m sprint because over this short distance a person is able to run as fast as is humanly possible, by using a huge burst of energy over a short space of time. Greater distances are more about human endurance rather than maximum speed because a person needs to pace themselves to cover the distance. Even though the 200m is classed as a "sprint" race, the maximum and average speeds reached are lower than those in the 100m due to the limitations in human endurance. These limitations are even more apparent in the 400m and 800m in which the average/maximum speeds are even lower than in the 200m. The mile run is mostly about endurance and even though you obviously need to produce a greater average (and maximum) speed to complete the mile in a shorter time, an absolute maximum value for speed in a human can only ever be attained over very short distances. Rodney Baggins (talk) 22:42, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ostrich Missing Top 20

The note says that ostriches and swordfish have around the same speed, but fails to actually add the ostrich into the fastest animals — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.1.201 (talk) 04:32, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Measurement Format Inconsistency

Just wanted to say that the page has some inconsistency with the format in which it lists the speed measurements. Fluctuates between liting km/h first and mph first. 50.100.49.243 (talk) 21:17, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relative Speed

I'm trying to find the relative speed of animals, but after trying my hand at the cheetah, I'm left conflicted about how to do it. The cheetah is said to be 16 body lengths, but I came to the conclusion of a range of about 20-30 body lengths, and I want to know where this discrepancy comes from. I divided the number of meters per second by their length to get my answer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThunderBrine (talk contribs) 02:59, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that you stop making relative speed calculations. We don't edit Wikipedia based on what one editor assumes, and some of your assumptions are clearly incorrect. I've removed your edits. Meters (talk) 03:16, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I really want to do the relative speed on as many animals as possible, the problems being I just need to find my mistakes. There's probably a special formula to get a more accurate answer, but in the meantime I will stop. Once I've found an answer come to an acceptable conclusion, I will report my findings here for communal debate and examination. Will that be acceptable? ThunderBrine (talk) 15:32, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Fastest reptile?

I’m yet to see any actual sources showing that bearded dragons can run at 25 mph as the source provided doesn’t seem to show anything substantial on it and contradicts itself by saying they can run at 9 mph. Anybody feel like linking something that shows evidence of them running at 25 mph? Alistair Naj (talk) 06:15, 18 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Spurious precision

(See false precision.)

The headline claims that the Cheetah has a top speed of "120.7 km/h (75.0 mph)".

That would imply that the Cheetah's speed was measured to an accuracy of ±0.05 km/h (±0.03 mph) which is extremely unlikely to be true, and certainly is not backed up by any cited sources. Moreover, some of the citations say that speeds over 70 mph have been discredited, so using that in the headline is doubly dubious.

This pattern continues throughout the article: numbers that are integer multiples of 5 appear far more often than would occur by chance, which strongly suggests that most of them are approximations, accurate to (at best) ±2½, and more likely ±5. Yet most of them give imperial/metric conversions that imply accuracy of ±0.5, and even worse, some include ".0", implying that they are accurate to ±0.05.

The abuses are clearer where ranges are given:

Tigers [...] have been recorded going anywhere from 30 mph (48 km/h) to 40 mph (64 km/h)

Tigers have been documented going slower than 30 mph, so clearly the given range is supposed to indicate an upper bound with an indication of its uncertainty: ±5 mph at best. Therefore showing anything other than "0" or "5" as the last digit is unjustified, and I suggest that it should be shown as "30 to 40 mph (50 to 65 km/h)", or even better, just "up to 40 mph (65 km/h)".

At least 16 other claims in this article are demonstrably false because of their egregiously spurious precision, and another dozen or so have are whole multiples of 5 that should not be taken as implying ±0.5 precision.

Many of these errors were introduced by a single edit back in 2013, which nobody has seen fit to revert or repair.

This is so bad that I don't have the energy to try to fix it.

TL;DR: please don't edit any numbers here without first reading false precision.

Martin Kealey (talk) 00:31, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Siberian tigers is claimed to have top speeds up to 80 km/h on short bursts that helps them run down prey on top of snow. This appears in google search, also I've watched this claim in an episode of an old Nat Geo tv show called- Build For Speed. I read about this claim in a couple of hunting journals about Siberian tigers. Hard to find a reliable link to use here tho. Ishan87 (talk) 14:34, 15 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect table sorting

Is there a reason why some of these tables sort correctly (i.e. numerically) when sorting by the speed column, and others don't (instead sorting them as if they were dictionary entries, with 97 being higher than 389)? Belbury (talk) 13:52, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Top 12 Fastest Land Animals In The World"Both roe deer and moose can run upto 60 km/h (37 mph), while the world's third fastest deer - the red deer - can reach 65 km/h"

[1]