Mummified cave Cheetah inform rewilding actions in Saudi Arabia

Abstract The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) experienced a steep population decline and has been extirpated from 98% of their historical range, including the Arabian Peninsula, where it played a role as top predator maintaining healthy food webs and ungulate populations. The serendipitous discovery of seven naturally mummified cheetah in caves along with skeletal remains of 54 cheetah, along with their putative prey, in the Northern region of Saudi Arabia provided an unexpected opportunity to study the genetic make-up of Arabian cheetah to inform conservation measures. The mummified cheetahs, the first reported natural mummification of a large felid, showed ¹⁴C calibrated ages dated 4223 ± 40 years BP to 127 ± 40 years BP. Full genome sequence of the mummified cheetahs showed that only the youngest individual clustered with A. j. venaticus (the Asian subspecies) while the older samples analyzed clustered with North-western African cheetah (A. j. hecki). These results show that rewilding efforts, believed to be hindered until recently by the exceedingly low population size of Asian cheetah, can be sourced from captive breeding of the closest subspecies of the discovered cheetahs. Our results highlight the important role arid soil caves may play as repositories of ancient biodiversity informing, in the absence of benchmarks, conservation and rewilding efforts.