Cheetahs and the Created Cat Kind

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Believers in descent with modifications evolution are fond of the taxonomy system that they hijacked from Carl Linnaeus (a creationist.) Talking about the biblical created kinds gets evolutionists on the prod. While the study of kinds is a work in progress among creationists, creationists are making progress.

As a point of reference, a kind is close to the family level in conventional taxonomy. Some of the criteria for including something in a kind often apply to species, such as whether or not different critters can interbreed and hybridize: lions and tigers, dobermans and coyotes, and many others.

Studying and defining the biblical created kinds is a work in progress. Some folks think that cheetahs are not in the cat kind, but that is incorrect.
Cheetah, Flickr / Tambako The Jaguar (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Most of the big cats can hybridize, but there are a few exceptions. Some folks think that cheetahs may not even be felines! Okay, they don't hybridize. That's not the only criterion. There are also a couple of common myths about cheetahs (never mind that cheetahs never prosper) that people believe and think they are not  felines. Unfortunately, inbreeding has caused them problems and probably made studies difficult.
The likely reason why cheetahs do not hybridize with other cat species is that cheetahs are extremely inbred. Inbreeding occurs when closely related individuals repeatedly breed which results in their genetics becoming overexpressed in a population. To demonstrate just how inbred cheetahs are, take a look at the photo below of the genetic markers of three different cats.

To see the photos and read the entire article, click on "The Cheetah Classifying Conundrum." Also, you may like "Coming to Terms with Species and Biblical Kinds." The sound is optional in this short video: