I assume you mean under its own steam because I'm sure as stone that Andy Green has been the fastest animal when he piloted Thrust SSC. The only supersonic man on Earth. But then how fast have rockets been? There have been turtles at hundreds of miles an hour! Whizzing through space:D

Tough one that because do birds fly faster than cheetahs can run? i know not, perhaps yes. MAybe the falcon as it swoops, does that count? I suggest a race, we put all the animals in cages, then let ronald talk to them for a few hours before telling him to run and then letting them go, the first one to catch him wins.

(only joking Ronald)

cough

PENGUINS!!!!! They are surprisingly fast, and i urge you to vote penguin. do it or he will hurt u

Congratualtions on resurrecting a 3 month old topic man! Bravo. Not even a useful post, if i was a mod u'd get a warning

I know that there is some kind of hawk that in a dive can reach 195mph. This is significantly faster than a cheeta running though i am unsure if it is faster than a cheeta pushed out a plane. As it woul be tricky to work out termianl velocitys (we can only count up to 13...even though we do manage 14 on occation (but we make up for that sometimes by using 12 sometimes)). I suggest we use splatter radiuses to determine the winner
Actually i think it depends on what kind of speed you mean, over a reasonable distance the hawk probably wins however over a very short distance i suspect the black mamba wins, it can strike very quickly. Ill have to check my book of records before i can confirm that though.

Surely an elephant from the ballon would have been faster?
Although chucking from a cargo plane would be easier?

I was never great at my physics, but would an elephant from a balloon not fall at exactly the same speed as a hawk or a penguin or whatever? I'm sure it's some sort of newton's law or something to do with gravity.

Sounds like a question for the higher physics students

Good evening class.
David is right that how much things weigh, or weight, as we physicists like to call it does not affect how fast a object can fall. What does affect it however is the air resistance and a streamlined shape, such as an elepahant, will fall faster than the over rated peregrine falcon, which thinks its cool, but isnt.
This explains the old drop off a leaning tower trick as both an apple and a bowling ball are pretty much spheres they hit the ground at the same time as they have the same air resistance.
And that isnt higher physics talking thats Bill Nye the science guy who proved this to me first ( I cant remember the exact details but it involved dropping a TV off a block of flats).
I must also take back my balck Mamba comment as i was off by over 150 MPh. Oh well. However i have foun out that the fastest land mammal over reasonable distances is the antolope. In case anyone cared.

I know everything falls at a constant acceleration and barring air esitstance will hit the ground at the same time. To prove this i say moneky! as soon as u say weight/weigh and not mass u ar wrong

Since weight is a force not a constant.

The fastest thing is probably whatever u decide to shoot out a cannon first!

Wouldnt it be the animal with least resistance then, possibly the falcon with its wings folded in or even a very small rodent...

Look this has got far too technical for me to possibly keep up with.
All i wanted to do was throw some animals out of a plane an then measure the spalater each one made, or, in the case of the smaller one, lots of those animals to make the spalatter reading fair. A discusion of physics was never part of the plan in any case i blame Bill Nye.

A though has struck me

Surely a one cell organsim counts as an animal and nothing can have less air resistance than that!

If you dont accept it how about that like pygmy mini hamster smaller than a 5p?

Small, animal, fast and boy would u get a nice small red splatter!

Correct me if im wrong but dont small animals, like mice have non terminal terminal velocitys?
Thats why cats can survive a fall from a really tall building. Finding out this is yet another reason to hire a weather ballon and do some splat-tastic science.

My moneys on most that of the pygmy mini hamsters would live. What? just throwing one would be unscientific.

I found this thread and thought it might shed some light upon our discussion.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=305085

For those of you without 10mins to spare basicly we are looking for the heaviest possible animal which looks like a very long torpedo. Unable to think of one (unless the world tallest elephant is anerexic) I must also add the swordish to this discussion, would it fall faster than the falcon?
Actually having though of it my money is on a blue whale. Long, heavy, torpedo shaped with stabalising fins.

I think you would probably fall quickly and since, technically, you are a mammal then it would be great. Although we would need two of you for a fair test, but that problem could easily be solved because I was watching Jonathon Ross on friday and they had Daniel Radcliffe on (I must stress at this point I am NOT a Harry Potter fan). He was incredibly like you, very uncanny. We could chuck you both out of the balloon, it would make a great spectator sport (cruel sports are really in at the moment, what with hunting starting again). You could even land on Silverstone, kind of defeat the object of racing round it though.