He's been hand-reared by humans and his best mate is a dog, so keepers at the National Zoo & Aquarium joke that they aren't sure their new star attraction even knows he's a cheetah.
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Four-month-old Solo was unveiled at the Canberra zoo on Wednesday, two days ahead of his public debut as one of the zoo's ambassador animals.
The product of a rare single-cub birth, the aptly named Solo has been hand-reared by keepers Kyle Macdonald and Aline IJsselmuiden since he was 19 days old.
Because mothers struggle to produce milk for a single cheetah cub, the keepers even began living at the zoo so they could bottle feed Solo every two hours until he was old enough to move onto his new diet.
He now eats 900 grams of meat each day, with mainly chicken and deer on the menu, and spends his days playing with a canine companion, Zama.
The zoo specially selected the border collie cross, whose genes give her the energy and determination to try and keep up with the world's fastest land animal, when Solo was one month old.
"If they have litter mates, that's the age when a lot of the play will start to happen, but if they're by themselves, they need that companionship," Mr Macdonald said.
"Having someone to play with is very important, both physically and mentally, so we got Zama in and they've been growing up together ever since.
"I'm not sure if he realises that he's a cheetah or if Zama realises she's a dog, because they just hang out and they're good buddies."
From Friday, Solo and Zama will join the zoo's Meet-a-Cheetah program, with visitors able to book hands-on encounters inside their enclosure, or a walk with the animals through the zoo's pine forest.
Mr Macdonald said Solo was incredibly valuable from a conservation perspective, with cheetah numbers declining rapidly.
The world's cheetah population has fallen by about 90 per cent in the past 100 years, with only about 7100 of the animals left, according to the latest cheetah census.
"They've declined massively, so the breeding programs that we do, and the ambassador programs where he'll be meeting people, are really important to raise awareness and money for conservation," Mr Macdonald said.
"Most people have heard about the rhinos and elephants, but cheetahs have flown under the radar, even though they're declining just as fast, if not faster."
Solo, who is the first cheetah cub to be born at the zoo, boosts its cheetah population to five.
Once he reaches the age of two, the zoo will look to pair him with a female for breeding.
"He's the first to be born here, but we hope he's the first of many," Mr Macdonald said.
