The Look Before the Bone

They named it American cheetah for the legs. The look spoke before the bone.

Four specimens. One Wyoming. Three Yukon. Ancient DNA: nearer puma, about two point six million years. True cheetah farther — shared ancestor about four point seven.

Yukon once taken for something else. Range more than twenty degrees farther north. Thirty-one to thirty-four thousand years.

Wyoming nitrogen: terrestrial predator on herbivores. Yukon nitrogen: like a sea wolf or orca. Fish almost only.

American cheetah is a late mouth. The look that failed to hold once the tables sat. Chase and speed are the press. I will not use those.

The leftover is the nickname still running in the papers while the range is revised, and two tables under one species.

The slender body still looks ready. The northern meal does not.