Mummified cheetah discovered in caves in Saudi Arabia: “Something that makes me

Scientists have discovered mummified remains of cheetahs in caves in northern Saudi Arabia.

The remains are between 130 and more than 1,800 years old. Researchers excavated seven mummies along with the bones of 54 other cheetahs at a site near the city of Arar and called the discovery “chance.”

Mummification prevents decomposition by preserving corpses. Mummies from Egypt are the best known, but the process can also occur naturally in places such as glacial ice, desert sands, and swamp mud.

The new big cat mummies have cloudy eyes and wrinkled limbs, resembling dried shells.

“It’s something I’ve never seen before,” said Joan Madurell-Malapeira of the University of Florence in Italy, who was not involved in the discovery.

The findings were detailed in a study published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth and Environment. The researchers said the discovery offers “unprecedented insights into the evolutionary history and extinction of cheetahs in Saudi Arabia.”

Researchers aren’t sure exactly how these new cats were mummified, but the caves’ dry conditions and stable temperature could have played a role. They also don’t know why there were so many cheetahs in the caves. It could have been a den where mothers gave birth and raised their young.

It is rare for large mammals to be preserved to this extent. In addition to being in the right environment, carcasses must also avoid becoming a snack for hungry scavengers like birds and hyenas.

Finding such intact evidence of cheetahs that lived long ago in this part of the world is “unprecedented,” study author Ahmed Boug of Saudi Arabia’s National Wildlife Center said in an email.

Cheetahs once roamed most of Africa and parts of Asia, but now live in just 9% of their former range and have not been seen in the Arabian Peninsula for decades. This is likely due to habitat loss, unregulated hunting, and lack of prey, among other factors.