HYDERABAD: The Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, has traced the source of the extinct Indian cheetah through a genetic study. The study suggests that the division between the North-East African cheetah with both the South-east African and Asiatic cheetah occurred 100,000-200,000 years ago. But the South-east African and Asiatic cheetah diverged from each other 50,000-100,000 years ago.
The Asiatic cheetahs, on the other hand, are found in numbers as small as 50 in Iran. For more than a decade, India has been discussing if it should reintroduce cheetah in the wild. While the earlier cheetahs in India were the Asiatic ones, whose numbers are dwindling everywhere in the world, the choice is to try and see if the African cheetah can adapt to the Indian conditions.
The study based on mitochondrial DNA analysis was conducted by CCMB in collaboration with Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, Lucknow; University of Cambridge- United Kingdom, Zoological Survey of India (ZSI)- Kolkata, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore reveals finer details of the evolutionary history of Asiatic and African cheetahs - sub-species of Acinonyx jubatus.