[5][1] Acinonyx hecki was the scientific name proposed by Max Hilzheimer in 1913, based upon a captive cheetah in the Berlin Zoological Garden that also originated in Senegal.

[6] In Niger, populations occur in the northern parts of the country in the Ténéré desert and in the southern savanna region of W National Park.

The Saharan cheetah is thought to be regionally extinct in Morocco, Western Sahara, Senegal, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.

[9] Between August 2008 and November 2010, four individuals were recorded by camera traps in Ahaggar National Park located in south central Algeria.

[10] A single cheetah was once again filmed and photographed by Algerian naturalists in 2020 in the same park in the Atakor volcanic field whose peaks approach a height of 3,000 metres (9,800 ft).