Fastest Animals in the World

What is the fastest animal in the world?

The fastest animal in the world is the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus). In a hunting dive, called a stoop, it has been timed at around 386 km/h (240 mph), although the figure you will see most often is 320 km/h (200 mph). Either way, no other animal on Earth has been clocked faster. That record leans on gravity, however, so the answer changes once you ask how an animal reaches its speed.

Speed records for animals fall into three groups: air, land and water. Within the air, a gravity-assisted dive is a different feat from powered horizontal flight. For level flight, the white-throated needletail is often named at about 170 km/h (105 mph), yet that figure comes from old reports nobody has verified. In 2016, researchers followed Brazilian free-tailed bats (also called Mexican free-tailed bats) in a light aircraft and recorded bursts of about 160 km/h (100 mph), the fastest level flight properly measured for any animal (McCracken et al., 2016). You can read more about them in my guide to bat species.

On land, the answer is the cheetah. In the water, most lists name the black marlin or the sailfish, and those two figures turn out to be the shakiest in the whole race.

The fastest land animal, and why it only runs in short bursts

The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is the fastest land animal, with a classic top speed of about 120 km/h (75 mph). It can go from 0 to 96 km/h (60 mph) in under three seconds, which beats most sports cars. When researchers fitted GPS collars to wild cheetahs in Botswana, the fastest run they recorded was 93 km/h (58 mph), and the hunts were won by acceleration and tight turns rather than raw top speed (Wilson et al., 2013).

Several adaptations make it capable of those speeds. A flexible spine works like a spring, the claws grip like running spikes, and the long tail steers through turns. The catch is heat. A cheetah builds up heat and burns energy so quickly that it can only maintain top speed for short bursts, usually well under a minute.

The pronghorn antelope (Antilocapra americana) is the opposite. It can sprint at close to 100 km/h (about 62 mph), then hold a fast pace for kilometres, something no cheetah can do. Behind them come the springbok and the quarter horse at about 88 km/h. The quarter horse is the fastest horse breed over a short sprint. Then there is the ostrich, which can run at 64 to 72 km/h (40 to 45 mph), making it the fastest animal on two legs.

The fastest animals in the water, and a speed myth

Most lists say the sailfish can swim at up to 110 km/h (68 mph) and the black marlin at 129 km/h (80 mph) or more. These are some of the most repeated facts about the ocean, and some of the least reliable. For example, the marlin record came from line being pulled off a fishing reel, not from timing the fish itself.

In 2016, a team of scientists measured how fast sailfish muscles can actually contract. From that, they estimated a top speed of about 30 km/h and concluded that a sailfish probably cannot pass 36 to 54 km/h (Svendsen et al., 2016). They found similar gaps for barracuda and mahi-mahi. That is why the race has a Measured speeds only switch: flip it, and watch the famous fish slow right down.

Among the better-supported fast swimmers, the shortfin mako is the fastest shark, with bursts of around 70 km/h. Close behind sit the warm-bodied bluefin and yellowfin tuna, the orca and the great barracuda. You will find the billfish in my marlin facts and the full top ten in my list of the fastest sea animals.

The fastest birds, beyond the peregrine

Diving birds of prey fill the top of any list, reaching speeds that no animal can match in level flight. The golden eagle is quoted at up to 320 km/h in a dive (see my guide to types of eagles), and the gyrfalcon, the world’s largest falcon, at about 209 km/h. In level flight, however, the order changes. Frigatebirds can fly at around 145 to 153 km/h (90 to 95 mph), and a grey-headed albatross riding an Antarctic storm was tracked by satellite at an average of about 127 km/h for nine hours.

Surprisingly, ducks and geese are some of the quickest birds in flapping flight. The spur-winged goose, red-breasted merganser and canvasback all appear in my guide to waterfowl, and a mallard with a tailwind can pass 100 km/h. Racing pigeons, descended from the rock dove, come in at around 148 km/h; I cover their wild relatives in pigeons of Australia. For the complete ranking, read my list of the fastest birds in the world, or my guide to the birds of prey in the UK, home of the swift-catching Eurasian hobby.

How do scientists measure animal speed?

Measurements of speed vary a lot between movement methods. A gravity-assisted dive, horizontal flight, a land sprint and a swim are four different problems, so comparing them is always a little unfair. The tools vary too. Scientists use stopwatches and timing gates on racetracks, GPS collars on cheetahs, satellite tags on albatrosses, aircraft chasing bats and, for fish, the speed at which their muscles can contract.

As a result, speeds in popular lists range from careful measurements to guesses repeated so often that they feel true. The best adaptations for speed are easy to spot, though: aerodynamic or streamlined shapes that reduce drag, flexible skeletons, long limbs and huge flight or swimming muscles. Every animal in the race carries a How sure are we? meter, marked Measured, Estimate or Disputed, so you can see which figures to trust.

From the field

I have never timed an animal myself, and the ones I know best are rarely in a hurry. Every lemon shark, whitetip reef shark and hammerhead I have dived with was calm, which is one reason I think sharks are so misunderstood. The animal on this subject that impresses me most is not fast at all. The bar-tailed godwits I have watched feeding at Coombabah Lakelands on the Gold Coast fly more than 11,000 km across the Pacific without stopping. Speed wins a chase, but endurance wins a migration.

All 44 racers

These are the figures the race uses, fastest first. Each card shows the top speed, how the animal reaches it, and how sure scientists are of the number. Tap any animal for my full guide to it.

Land

Air

Water

How to use the speed race

• Race: pick up to five animals, tap one to predict the winner, and press start. Then share the link to challenge a friend.
• Speed dial: swipe through every animal from slowest to fastest, with a speedometer and everyday comparisons like a car on a highway.
• Who’s faster?: ten match-ups that get closer each round. Your best score is saved on your device.
• Fun facts: after every race, a fact about the winner appears with a link to my full guide, so curiosity always has somewhere to go next.
• km/h or mph: switch units at the top, and use Measured speeds only to swap famous figures for measured ones.

Frequently asked questions

More wildlife interactives

• Animal size comparisonFourteen animals at one true scale, beside a person
• Shark size comparisonTwenty sharks, from a pygmy shark to megalodon
• Whale size comparisonFourteen whales, with a depth gauge
• Migration mapsFollow six great migrations month by month

References

1. McCracken, G. F., Safi, K., Kunz, T. H., Dechmann, D. K. N., Swartz, S. M., & Wikelski, M. (2016). Airplane tracking documents the fastest flight speeds recorded for bats. Royal Society Open Science, 3(11), 160398. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160398
2. Svendsen, M. B. S., Domenici, P., Marras, S., Krause, J., Boswell, K. M., Rodriguez-Pinto, I., Wilson, A. D. M., Kurvers, R. H. J. M., Viblanc, P. E., Finger, J. S., & Steffensen, J. F. (2016). Maximum swimming speeds of sailfish and three other large marine predatory fish species based on muscle contraction time and stride length: A myth revisited. Biology Open, 5(10), 1415–1419. https://doi.org/10.1242/bio.019919
3. Wilson, A. M., Lowe, J. C., Roskilly, K., Hudson, P. E., Golabek, K. A., & McNutt, J. W. (2013). Locomotion dynamics of hunting in wild cheetahs. Nature, 498(7453), 185–189. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12295