Mummified cave cheetahs inform rewilding actions in Saudi Arabia

Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) have experienced a steep population decline globally, extirpated from 91% of their historical range, including Saudi Arabia. Information about cheetahs’ historic range remains scarce throughout much of its former habitat. A serendipitous discovery of seven naturally mummified cheetahs in several caves along with skeletal remains of 54 cheetahs, and their putative prey, in Saudi Arabia provided a valuable opportunity to elucidate the evolutionary history of cheetahs in their former range. We applied paleochronological dating to establish temporal context, genomic sequencing to infer subspecies present during different time periods, and radiographic analysis to determine age classes. The mummified cheetahs showed 14C calibrated ages dated 4223 ± 40 years BP to 127 ± 40 years BP. Full genome sequences of the mummified cheetahs showed that only the youngest individual clustered with A. j. venaticus while the older samples clustered with the West-African cheetah (A. j. hecki). We conclude that rewilding of cheetahs in Arabia can be sourced from the closest subspecies of the discovered cheetahs. Our results highlight the important role caves may play as repositories of ancient biodiversity informing, in the absence of benchmarks rewilding efforts. Naturally mummified cheetah remains in a Saudi Arabian cave system with radiocarbon-calibrated ages between about 4,200 and 100 years cluster with Asian as well as West-African sub-species, with implications for rewilding efforts, suggests a genomic analysis of the remains.