Mummified cheetahs discovered in caves in Saudi Arabia: "Something that I've never seen before"

Scientists have uncovered the mummified remains of cheetahs from caves in northern Saudi Arabia.

The remains range from 130 years old to over 1,800 years old. Researchers excavated seven mummies along with the bones of 54 other cheetahs from a site near the city of Arar, calling the discovery "serendipitous."  

Mummification prevents decay by preserving dead bodies. Egypt's mummies are the most well-known, but the process can also happen naturally in places like glacier ice, desert sands and bog sludge.

The new large cat mummies have cloudy eyes and shriveled limbs, resembling dried-out husks.

"It's something that I've never seen before," said Joan Madurell-Malapeira with the University of Florence in Italy, who was not involved with the discovery.

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

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

It's uncommon for large mammals to be preserved to this degree. Besides being in the right environment, the carcasses also have to avoid becoming a snack for hungry scavengers like birds and hyenas.

To find such intact evidence of cheetahs that lived long ago in this part of the world is "entirely without precedent," study author Ahmed Boug with the National Center for Wildlife in Saudi Arabia said in an email.

Cheetahs once roamed across most of Africa and parts of Asia, but now live in just 9% of their previous range and haven't been spotted across the Arabian Peninsula for decades. That's likely due to habitat loss, unregulated hunting and lack of prey, among other factors.