Talk:Fastest animals

Missing entrants

I added a couple that should be on the list, the domestic cat and great white shark, both are definitely faster than the humble human it's proven so it's insulting neither made this list, aside from our species being the most well documented (naturally for us) even Bolt's record speed is nothing special to be on this list, there are countless faster animals on foot. I would try to edit the page again but it's pointless if it will only be reversed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:1D98:6800:FD3D:11B4:932C:6281 (talk) 07:07, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Comment

Concerning the vertebrate animals mammals, (the zone that I take care) i put that certain speeds and realities, by knowledge also and I found that it was very also to explain to esteem. For giraffes have find few reliable references or then sites which money respect while they are animals very fast, (I have already seen the races of giraffes and they go so fast as from lions or zebras to sprint) but no references mentions that it goes to 50 mph (80 km/h)! We know just that she can reach 35 mph (but it is its average in the sprint in reality, because point real she makes 50 mph (80 km/h). In knowledge that many references mix the top speed and the average speed, due to the lack of knowledge, and speeds it is not as well simple as in the sight, moreover his gives errors sometimes.--Angel310 (talk) 17:34, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Copyediting

My changes were limited to changing every species to a good link, and to adding information about the (claimed) fastest insect.--DThomsen8 (talk) 01:12, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Contradictory?

The article states that the fastest animal in body lengths per second is Paratarsotomus macropalpis at 322 body lengths per second, but then it says that Anna's Hummingbird achieves 385 body lengths per second. Isn't 385 more than 322? Ashorocetus (talk) 18:54, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I just did some simple math - Anna's Hummingbird has a body length of about 10 centimetres (9.9-10.9 cm), so 10 body lengths per second would be 1 meter per second. 98.27 km/h, the stated speed, is equal to 27.3 m/s, or 273 body lengths per second. Not sure where the 385 came from, but it seems like a simple math error on the part of whoever wrote that. Drathe (talk) 08:02, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Horsefly Speed

Colour me sceptical, but I highly doubt the veracity of the cited claim. An insect travelling at 90 MPH would surely be noteworthy.

Sophomoric (talk) 12:07, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I too was skeptical, so I did a bit of digging. What I found -

• The Horsefly airspeed was apparently measured by Jerry Butler, an entomologist at the University of Florida, who once got a male Hybomitra to chase a plastic pellet fired from an air rifle "Which it caught in midair and dropped." He then estimated the speed of the fly based off of that.
• The website that is listed as the source is "horse fly| speed of insects" and is a site that lists Wikipedia as ITS source, so we're using self-referencing materials here.
• The Smithsonian Institute lists the fastest flying insect as the Sphinx Moth at about 53 km/h, roughly one third of what the horse fly is claimed to be. http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/buginfo/insflght.htm

Drathe (talk) 08:19, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Would the following be an acceptable source? (I don't know about Wikipedia standards for this, and the author only cites personal communication with Dr. Butler):

http://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu/walker/ufbir/chapters/chapter_01b.shtml

edit: I'm just going to add it, since I am sure I will forget about this whole thing otherwise, a real editor can then remove it if necessary. Sorry if this causes any inconveniences.

--212.241.84.234 (talk) 18:46, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

A source that is reporting on an unpublished interpolation does not sound very reliable to me. Meters (talk) 20:48, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

lol @ horse fly speed

I can't tell if speedofanimals.com is a circular reference or just a bad one, but it's a good example of some missing common sense or something.

I bet someone can find a source for a horse fly speed ... i can't ... but some other web sites have less insane estimates at 20-25 mph ... Sad to say I would not dare try to edit wikipedia, good luck whoever cares about this liberal biased 911 conspiracy denying crap heap and have fun! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.101.115.98 (talk) 03:45, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

freefalling skydiver

There have been several attempts to add the speed reached by freefalling skydiver Felix Baumgartner. Yes, some birds use gravity to achieve their maximum speed, but at least they actually gain their potential energy themselves in flight. We don't include the terminal velocity of other animals (elephants or turtles, for example) that are tossed out of airplanes or fall off of cliffs. Why do it for people? Anyone want to support including the skydiving speed? Meters (talk) 04:24, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

No support, so I'll continue to remove skydiver speeds as they are entered. Meters (talk) 18:29, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Culling the List

After reading through this list, it seems that there is a lot of information that needs to be double-checked and fixed. For example, the reference for the speed of the housefly lists Wikipedia as the source for the information on that site. The site that the speed of the Bearded Dragon comes from makes no reference to speed anywhere. And there's more. I'd be willing to help clean this all up so that all the properly reference facts remain, but I wanted to see if anyone had anything they wanted to contribute first. Should this list be "culled"/clean up like this? Drathe (talk) 08:41, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Horsefly speed is accurate

Apparently horse fly's have been estimated at that speed by an official study so stfu with your lols and rush limbaugh ranting buddy.

Kutsch, W., and Fuchs, U., 2000, Locust flight initiation: a comparison of normal and artificial release: Physiological entomology, 25, 370-382. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.101.115.98 (talk) 03:53, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Possible wrong information

This piece of information is surely wrong: Instantaneous max. 65.26 km/h (40.55 mph) Avg max over fastest 10-20m - 60kmh/40mph[77] Compared to other land animals, humans are exceptionally capable of endurance, but exceptionally incapable of great speed. based on this information, human being can pass 100 meter in 6 seconds, while surely he cannot! Also, this passage says humans are capable in endurance. It is obviously wrong as well. Esmatly (talk) 13:23, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Ostrich top speed

I don't trust the website where they are pulling that top speed from. Most websites do 43 mph or 45 mph, not 60 mph as it suggests here. Maybe they got kph confused?

At any rate, a more reliable source seems to be needed to confirm that an ostrich can run that fast. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Okami31 (talk • contribs) 15:59, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

This indeed appears to be wrong. I have found several scientific papers that list the top speed of ostriches as 70 km/h, and a sustained speed of >50 km/h. The best guess is that the currently cited article confused top speed with sustained speed and mph with km/h.

See e.g.

I removed it. The website doesn't exist anymore. Ostrich top speed is 70-72km/h as per Nat Geo Wild and Animal Planet. The claim also matches that of the main Wikipedia article page of Ostrich. Ishan87 (talk) 14:27, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Common Dolphin

I don't think that the common dolphin is a land mammal, so maybe either the title should be changed to just mammal, or the dolphin should be removed (or a picture added of a dolphin moving 65km/h on land). 00:04, 24. August 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.82.28.221 (talk)

 Fixed, changed title to "Mammals". Thanks, Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:49, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Top speeds for fish contradict newest research

New research has shown, that many reported top speeds for several kind of fish are infeasible. Bnord (talk) 09:05, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

References

Also the sources given for them are woefully poor. I've removed them and added citation requests, but maybe we should just remove the claims entirely, and add a note referencing this paper. Danny Yee (talk) 11:56, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Where is the list of animals by speed?

I suggest to merge both lists fastest and slowest animals, and construct a list of animals by speed.

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131110111245/http://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu/walker/ufbir/chapters/chapter_39.shtml to http://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu/walker/ufbir/chapters/chapter_39.shtml

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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)

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)

Adding deer

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

References

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)

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)

• 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)
• 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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)