Joshua Brookes was a British anatomist and naturalist. Brookes studied under William Hunter, William Hewson, Andrew Marshall and John Sheldon in London. He then attended the practice of Antoine Portal and other eminent surgeons at the Hotel-Dieu de Paris.
Brookes became a teacher of anatomy in London, and the founder of the Brookesian Museum of Comparative Anatomy.
Brookes was the first to place the Cheetah in its own genus, which is established in 1828 as Acinonyx. The generic name, Brookesia, in in honour of Joshua Brookes