A cheetah known as Chewbaaka has helped scientists time-travel through that species’ long, complex history, even providing some clues about how the big cats became the world’s fastest land animals.
Chewbaaka, rescued as a 10-day-old orphan in Namibia, became an “ambassador” animal for the Cheetah Conservation Fund there. (His name is a variation of the “Star Wars” character’s.) He died five years ago at the advanced age of 16 — twice the life span of the average cheetah in the wild — but not before geneticists drew his blood.
