The Romans may have referred to the cheetah as the leopardos (λεοπάρδος) or leontopardos (λεοντόπαρδος), believing it to be a hybrid between a leopard and a lion because of the mantle seen in cheetah cubs and the difficulty of breeding them in captivity. A Roman hunting cheetah is depicted in a 4th century mosaic from Lod, Israel. Cheetahs continued to be used into the Byzantine period of the Roman empire, with "hunting leopards" being mentioned in the Cynegetica (283/284 AD). In eastern Asia, records are confusing as regional names for the leopard and the cheetah may be used interchangeably. The earliest depiction of cheetahs from eastern Asia dates back to the Tang dynasty (7th to 10th centuriesAD); paintings depict tethered cheetahs and cheetahs mounted on horses. Chinese emperors would use cheetahs and caracals as gifts. In the 13th and the 14th centuries, the Yuan rulers bought numerous cheetahs from the western parts of the empire and from Muslim merchants. According to the Ming Shilu, the subsequent Ming dynasty (14th to 17th centuries) continued this practice. Tomb figurines from the Mongol empire, dating back to the reign of Kublai Khan (1260–1294 AD), represent cheetahs on horseback. The Mughal ruler Akbar the Great (1556–1605 AD) is said to have kept as many as 1000 khasa (imperial) cheetahs. His son Jahangir wrote in his memoirs, Tuzk-e-Jahangiri, that only one of them gave birth. Mughal rulers trained cheetahs and caracals in a similar way as the western Asians, and used them to hunt game, especially blackbuck. The rampant hunting severely affected the populations of wild animals in India; by 1927, cheetahs had to be imported from Africa. In captivity The first cheetah to be brought into captivity in a zoo was at the Zoological Society of London in 1829. Early captive cheetahs showed a high mortality rate, with an average lifespan of 3–4 years. After trade of wild cheetahs was delimited by the enforcement of CITES in 1975, more efforts were put into breeding in captivity; in 2014 the number of captive cheetahs worldwide was estimated at 1730 individuals, with 87% born in captivity. Mortality under captivity is generally high; in 2014, 23% of the captive cheetahs worldwide died under one year of age, mostly within a month of birth. Deaths result from several reasons—stillbirths, birth defects, cannibalism, hypothermia, maternal neglect, and infectious diseases. Compared to other felids, cheetahs need specialised care because of