https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:5297 Mummified cave cheetahs inform rewilding actions in Saudi Arabia Boug, Ahmed Al Ahmed Al Boug 0009-0005-0227-3373 Mir, Zaffar R. Zaffar R. Mir 0000-0002-3550-6250 Jbour, Sharif Sharif Jbour van der Merwe, Vincent Vincent van der Merwe Al Salem, Abdullah Abdullah Al Salem Al-Qahtani, Abdulmani H. Abdulmani H. Al-Qahtani Al A’amri, Saleh Saleh Al A’amri Amr, Zuhair Zuhair Amr Angelici, Francesco Maria Francesco Maria Angelici Galassi, Francesco Maria Francesco Maria Galassi Varotto, Elena Elena Varotto 0000-0001-6637-9402 Albeshr, Mohammed F. Mohammed F. Albeshr Al Shamari, Talal Talal Al Shamari Al Shamari, Khalaf Khalaf Al Shamari Al Mutairi, Mohammed Mohammed Al Mutairi Burger, Pamela A. Pamela A. Burger 0000-0002-6941-0257 University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna Prost, Stefan Stefan Prost Duarte, Carlos M. Carlos M. Duarte Springer journal article open access eng 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. Ecological Genetics Ecology Evolutionary Ecology Palaeontology http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/api/object/o:5297/download 10.1038/s43247-025-03021-6 https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:605 https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:5298 application/pdf Communications Earth & Environment issn:2662-4435 VoR Communications Earth & Environment 7 1.09 MB 2026