@farmerman,
Hadda look about and was pleased in a simple discussion on the mitochondria and the mitochondrial distribution within a cheetah. Apparently, the cheetah population , in the Pleistocene had crashed worldwide and the remnants of the population (from a species distribution standpoint) left only the small population that had recently expanded its range into a similarly increasing savannah.
According to one article, the "genetic bottleneck" left certain of a much larger and diverse population. The structure of the various extra nuclear mitochondria , apparently varied in sizes from 16000 to over 17000 base pairs and valine was an important product in the phosphorylation transfer. SO , apparently the mitochondrial species AND the extra nuclear density was somehow in the mix that affects respiratory duration.
The big item is the post Pleistocene evolution of the cat from a species that was originally (as done by speculation because the fossils are less available than needed to make a final determination) a short distance camouflage hunter to one that is now stretching its ability as a longer distance sprinter.
The point that interests me is that we seem to have an intermediate form that is in the process of adapting to a more rapidly changing savannah from an earlier, wetter forest environment.
It was damn dificult tracking down some genetics papers that were more accessible to someone like me( not a specialist in areas of genetics). (I always bitch about how the abstracts of articles are getting increasingly "insider" oriented, and the purpose of any wider communication is being lost).