A scientific team exploring a remote cave in northern Saudi Arabia expected to find bones at most. Instead, they came face to face with whole cheetah bodies, dried but still intact, lying on the cave floor.
The discovery was so unusual that one outside expert described it as something never seen before in the study of big cats.
New research describes seven naturally-mummified cheetahs and the bones of 54 more animals from the Lauga cave network near the city of Arar. Their skin, limbs, and even parts of the brain are preserved well enough that scientists could extract DNA and date the remains from about 130 years ago back to nearly two thousand years, with some skeletons even older.
The results show that at least two cheetah subspecies once roamed the Arabian Peninsula and may now guide plans to bring the species back to the region.
A never before seen discovery in a Saudi cave
In 2022 and 2023, a team from the National Center for Wildlife surveyed 134 underground caves across about twelve hundred square kilometers of desert near Arar. In five of those caves they found cheetah remains, and in one sinkhole cave they uncovered most of the seven natural mummies along with dozens of skeletons. Some bodies lay only a few dozen meters from a cave entrance, others much deeper in the dark.
The mummified animals look hauntingly fresh for their age, with leathery skin stretched over ribs, legs curled in toward the body, and cloudy eyes that still stare out of the dust. Paleontologist Joan Madurell-Malapeira from the University of Florence, who was not part of the project, said the find was “something I have never seen before” in large carnivores. He and other experts point out that naturally mummified big cats simply were not on the scientific radar until now.
How desert caves turned cheetahs into natural mummies
When an animal dies, bacteria and insects usually break down soft tissues within days, especially in hot climates. In these caves, constant cool temperatures and very dry air slowed that process so much that skin, tendons, and even internal organs dried out instead of rotting. Anyone who has stepped into an air-conditioned room from desert heat knows how quickly moisture can vanish, and the caves created a similar drying effect for these carcasses.
For such large animals to stay intact, they also had to escape scavengers like hyenas, vultures, or foxes that usually clean up carcasses on the surface. Study author Ahmed Boug noted in a press statement that finding cheetahs in this condition in this part of the world is “entirely without precedent.”
Researchers descend into a remote cave near Arar in northern Saudi Arabia, the harsh desert site where scientists uncovered naturally mummified cheetahs in a discovery few thought possible for large mammals.
Similar natural mummification in caves has been recorded only in a few other carnivores, such as a single extinct Tasmanian tiger, which is why the authors see this cheetah site as almost unique in modern science.
Ancient DNA reveals a lost cheetah family tree
Because the bodies are so well preserved, researchers were able to extract genetic material from both mummies and bones, something never before achieved with naturally-mummified big cats. They sequenced full genomes for three individuals and compared them to modern cheetah populations from across Africa and Asia to see where the ancient animals fit on the family tree. In simple terms, the DNA lets scientists match each mummy with its closest living relatives.
The oldest cheetahs from the caves turned out to be most closely related to cheetahs that live today in northwest Africa, while the youngest mummy clusters with the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah that survives in Iran.
That part changes everything. It shows that at least two different subspecies once shared the Arabian landscape over thousands of years, giving planners more choice when they design reintroduction programs, Boug says.
What this means for cheetahs in Arabia today
Cheetahs once ranged across most of Africa and large parts of western and southern Asia, including the Arabian Peninsula, but have now vanished from about ninety percent of that territory. Only a few thousand remain in the wild, mostly in southern and eastern Africa, along with a tiny Asiatic population in Iran. For conservation planners, that steep decline means every scrap of reliable historical information becomes precious.
The cave cheetahs give Saudi officials a rare, concrete guide to which subspecies once lived there and how long they persisted, supporting a reintroduction program that combines captive breeding with habitat restoration.
National planners can now match future releases to the bloodlines that once actually lived on this land, rather than guessing from modern maps. At the end of the day, anyone who hopes to see cheetahs sprinting again across Arabian sand is left with a simple question, will we use this window into the past to build a safer future for them.
The main study has been published in Communications Earth & Environment.