Cheetah mummies found in Arabian caves provide rare genome from a lost population
Preserved by dry, cool air and darkness, the cheetah mummies are offering scientists DNA insights into a lost population and ideas for bringing it back.
In 2022, researchers with Saudi Arabia’s National Center for Wildlife set out to explore a vast cave network in search of bats, bugs, and other biodiversity. But hidden within the remote and nearly unreachable caves—one of which could only be entered by descending into a 50-foot-deep sinkhole—they uncovered something jaw-dropping: seven mummified cheetahs, with fangs poking out from their leathery lips.
Finding the cheetah remains "was a surprise," says Carlos Duarte, an ecologist at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. "At first, it wasn't clear why there were cheetahs there. They had never been reported to inhabit caves."
The cave’s dry climate kept the cheetahs perfectly preserved, some for about 130 years and others for nearly 2,000. It was the first time scientists had discovered naturally mummified big cats on the Arabian Peninsula. Along with the cheetah mummies, the researchers also unearthed skeletal remains of more than 50 cheetahs, some dating back about 4,000 years.
“Many, many generations of cheetahs lived in those caves,” says Duarte, who was not present for the original find, but worked with the researchers to later extract and analyze an entire genome from the mummified cheetah tissue.
(The world’s first saber-toothed cat mummy has been found in Siberia.)
Their genetic analysis, published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, found that these ancient cheetahs are closely related to Asiatic and Northwest African cheetahs, two subspecies still alive today. Cheetahs went locally extinct on the Arabian Peninsula in the 1970s, so this finding, Duarte says, could aid conservation efforts to reintroduce them into the wild in Saudi Arabia.
"This is really exciting work,” says Molly Cassatt-Johnstone, a graduate student at the Paleogenomics Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has studied prehistoric cheetahs and ancient DNA but was not involved in the paper. “Recovering these mummified specimens and generating paleogenomic data from them is a huge contribution to our understanding of a critically endangered subspecies."
Sale Extended - Save up to $20!
Big cat collapse
Cheetahs were once icons of the Arabian Peninsula. They were gifted to kings and dignitaries and trained to hunt alongside humans, much like falcons are today. But eventually, people turned against their feline friends and started hunting them for sport. That, coupled with the depletion of the animals the big cats preyed upon, caused cheetah numbers to plummet across the Arabian Peninsula. Similar stories have unfolded across their range. Once found from Africa to India, cheetahs now occupy just 9% of their historic range and number only about 7,000 worldwide.
But prior to their local extinction, these cats found refuge from the desert heat in the Arabian Peninsula’s shady and relatively chilled caves, says Duarte. Inside, the researchers also found cheetah scat and the chewed-up bones of their prey. “It became clear that cheetahs in the Arabian Peninsula were using these caves as habitats and dens,” he says.
The cool, dark, and stable environments were also ideal for DNA preservation. The genomes that Duarte and his team recovered from the mummified cheetahs showed striking genetic similarities to Asiatic and Northwest African cheetahs, two of the five recognized cheetah subspecies.
(Researchers recover a woolly rhino genome from inside a frozen wolf's stomach )
"The more we know about the ecological and evolutionary history of cheetahs in the region, the better-equipped we are to make informed conservation decisions,” says Cassatt-Johnstone. “And paleogenomic data like this is invaluable for filling in gaps."
Cheetah conservation plans
Scientists long thought that Asiatic cheetahs were the only subspecies to inhabit Saudi Arabia. By some estimates, fewer than 30 of the Asiatic cheetah subspecies that once prowled Saudi Arabia’s sand dunes and grasslands remain alive in the wild today. With so few Asiatic cheetahs left, all of which live in Iran, using that subspecies to rebuild Saudi Arabia’s population does not seem feasible.
But the Northwest African cheetah, while also critically endangered, numbers around 400, and some are being bred in captivity. Duarte and his colleagues say Northwest African cheetahs can and should be used to rewild cheetahs in Saudi Arabia, given their availability and genetic similarity to the cheetahs that once called the country home.
The Saudi Arabian government, he says, has already taken steps to bring cheetahs back to the region, such as breeding potential prey species like oryx and other antelope, and creating conservation areas.
“There is a great potential that this could be a great place for the cheetah to go back to,” says Laurie Marker, executive director of the Cheetah Conservation Fund. "The success won’t be overnight. The government will have to be in it for the long term and have the economics to support it."
(A closer look at lion evolution offers hope for saving the big cats)
Unlike leopards, which have subspecies adapted to snow-covered mountainous forests and scorching savannas, all five cheetah subspecies are generally adapted to open, dry environments such as grasslands. Whether cheetahs from other subspecies can thrive in Saudi Arabia’s deserts, though, remains to be seen. But if the cheetah does return, the same cool caves that sheltered their ancestors thousands of years ago may once again offer the big cats reprieve from the heat and help preserve their legacy.
