Ancient mummified cheetahs discovered in Saudi Arabia contain preserved DNA from the long-lost population

Scientists have successfully extracted the DNA of ancient mummified cheetahs discovered in a cave in Saudi Arabia. This is the first time scientists have been able to extract genetic information from ancient naturally mummified big cats, researchers say, and it could lead to the animals' reintroduction to the region.

In 2022 and 2023, researchers discovered seven desiccated cheetahs and the skeletal remains of 54 others in the Lauga cave network the Arar area of northern Saudi Arabia. The remains date to between 100 and 4,000 years ago.

In a new study, published Thursday (Jan. 15) in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, scientists analyzed genetic data from the big cats and found that the older ones are most closely related to modern-day cheetahs in western Africa rather than Asian cheetahs.

Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) are under threat globally. Populations have plummeted, and there are now only about 7,100 cheetahs left. The big cat, which is the world's fastest land mammal, once roamed through most of Africa and in Asia from the Arabian peninsula to India, but it now lives in about 9% of its historic range.

Today, there are five recognized sub-species of cheetah, four of which are in Africa and one (A. j. venaticus) in Asia. This Asian population is restricted to a small group of cheetahs in Iran.

No one is sure how many cheetahs once roamed in the Arabian peninsula, or how widely they were distributed. Similarly, there is little evidence about why or when they disappeared. Scholars speculate that it was a mixture of habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting and human-wildlife conflict.

However, the discovery of the hoard of ancient cheetah remains — which includes cubs and adults — proves that they once did roam the region — and could offer a blueprint for their return.

"The research provides strong evidence for the historical presence of cheetahs in Saudi Arabia and supports the potential for rewilding in this region to help expand their current range and restore part of their former distribution," Desire Dalton, a forensic scientist at Teesside University in the U.K., who studies the use of genomic tools to inform conservation and was not involved in the study, told Live Science.

In the study, researchers dated samples from two of the mummified cheetahs and five of the skeletons. The oldest skeletal remains belong to a cheetah that died about 4,000 years ago, while the two desiccated cheetahs are 130 and 1,870 years old respectively.

The team found evidence that prehistoric cheetahs in Saudi Arabia are genomically the closest to the West African A. j. hecki subspecies. Only the youngest specimen analyzed had closer links to the Asian subspecies A. j. Venaticus.

"Using advanced archaeological, radiological and genomic technique, the authors have established that the mummified cheetahs have two lineages," Kumarasamy Thangaraj, a forensic geneticist at the CSIR Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, India, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science.

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Researchers collecting one of the mummified cheetahs from its place of discovery.

Researchers examining of the mummified cheetahs in a laboratory.

Dalton said that the identification of these unique lineages suggests that cheetah diversity loss may have been greater than scientists previously thought.

But the research gives conservationists a starting point to potentially reintroduce cheetahs to Saudi Arabia. The authors argue that cheetahs for rewilding in the Arabian peninsula can be sourced from the closest subspecies of the discovered cheetahs — A. j. Hecki — which is much more abundant than the Asian subspecies.

The DNA discovery could prove useful for ongoing rewilding efforts. In 2023, Saudi Arabia launched a program to reintroduce the Arabian cheetah. A year later, its National Center for Wildlife reported the birth of four cheetah cubs and the launch of its National Cheetah Conservation Strategy, which includes the creation of specialized breeding facilities, and the establishment of a wild breeding population.

The idea of using ancient DNA to reintroduce animals is not far-fetched, Dalton said. "Genetic studies have guided several successful rewilding projects." For example, genetic data for European bison (Bison bonasus) have informed breeding and translocation strategies for these animals. This reduced the risk of animals struggling to adapt to their new environment, she said. There is also a project underway to conduct ancient DNA analysis of European wolves (Canis lupus lupus) to develop targeted management strategies to preserve the biodiversity of European wolves, she said.

The study authors think that caves around the world could yield more secrets about ancient species. Caves in arid environments, such as Saudi Arabia, can generate hot, dry microclimates that are ideal for drying out animal remains, which can lead to mummification.

"The arid cave environments of Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere, may yet hold further important insights that can inform ecological histories, evolutionary insight, and actionable intelligence for rewilding and conservation," the authors wrote.