Which Animals Are Ultrarunners?

So which are the fastest land animals? And for how long can they run at top speed?


Here's some insight into the fastest runners, from the book Why We Run—A Natural History by Bernd Heinrich. Cheetahs are the fastest runners on earth—hitting top speeds of 70 to 75 mph. But they can do so for only about half a minute before they start to overheat and contend with lactic acid buildup. Pronghorn antelopes have been clocked at 61 mph, almost twice as fast as a racehorse, and not just in a short sprint. The pronghorn is reputed to be able to cover 7 miles in 10 minutes. It outruns its predators rather than hiding from them.

Pronghorns

Although pronghorns are superb runners for moderate distances of about 20 to 30 miles, there's no evidence that they are ultramarathon distance runners. They never have to run 30 miles nonstop from wolves. Wolves usually catch elk within about a mile or so at Yellowstone Park. If not, they give up. Wolves seldom pursue for more than two miles, according to the Yellowstone Wolf Recovery Project.

“Speed is meaningless unless the distance is specified,” writes Heinrich. Among humans, the maximum running speed is about 23 mph in a sprint, but drops off dramatically as distances increase.

Camels are not fast runners, with their top speed at about 10 mph. This pales in comparison to a champion racehorse such as Secretariat, whose speed averaged 37.5 mph in the 1.5 mile Belmont in 1973. But, in a one-day race between a camel and a horse over a 109-mile course, although the horse won by a hair, it died the next day and the camel kept going. So speed is relative and endurance counts for a lot.