In Saudi Arabia about a week ago scientist amazingly discovered seven mummified Cheetahs and 54 bones of others. The Cheetahs and the bones were mummified inside caves in the city of Arar. This discovery dramatically lead to scientist understanding how Cheetahs once live in the middle east.
The scientist believe that the cheetahs used the caves as birthing dens long ago. This shocked scientist because they have never seen animals especially cheetahs preserved so well.
The remains are about 130 years to as much as 1,800 years old. The cheetah mummies have their limbs all shivered and cloudy eyes.
Junior, Ulyssa Lozanno states “This discovery is very fascinating to me and it’s so cool. I think its weird why they would preserve Cheetahs”
Cheetahs used to once live across the Arabian Peninsula but due to habitat loss, loss of prey, and unpredicted hunting habits they left Saudi Arabia and that’s why it is so amazing these mummified artifacts were found.
Cheetahs are now considered an endangered population since there numbers have greatly decreased. This is due to habitat loss from human expansion in their territories. They are also endangered because of illegal wildlife trade from cubs stolen from the wild for pets and fur.
Scientist are not entirely sure how these Cheetahs got mummified. however, they do believe that due to the caves dry atmosphere and stable temperature this helped a lot at keeping the Cheetahs from decaying.
Scientist started testing the mummies and discovering more about them. The scientist did this by taking a sample of their DNA. When they took their DNA they found that there genetics track back to most similarly Cheetahs today from Asia and northwest Africa. The scientist think that this will help them and more in the future to bring back the animals to other places and start reintroducing them.
