History continues to live among us in different forms. Once upon a time, maharajas and other influential people hunted tigers and other wildlife and preserved those as trophies, many of which continue to furnish their homes. Genetic samples extracted from such trophies have solved many natural history mysteries. Samples extracted from the trophies of tigers, for instance, revealed that the genetic diversity of the animal in India has declined by more than 93 per cent.
The recent focus on cheetahs has renewed the debate over their historical distribution in India. Can this mystery also be solved with genetic material from cheetah trophies?
In a two-century span, only 22 cheetah trophies connected to India are known to exist. Of these, 19 are found in India and three in British museums. In India too, most of these survive in various museums. Two erstwhile royal families of Bikaner (Rajasthan) and Koriya (Chhattisgarh) also own historical cheetah trophies.
In various Indian natural history museums, the cheetah “trophies” exist mostly in the form of skulls and skeletons. Most of these bone specimens came from zoos, animal dealers or unknown origins. There is no evidence that any of these was hunted in India. The dearth of cheetah trophies in India is startling when compared to those of tigers and leopards. Since 1915, Van Ingen & Van Ingen, the once-famous taxidermy firm in Mysore, has processed more than 20,000 tigers and more than 23,000 leopards.
According to cheetah historian Divyabhanusinh, sport and bounty hunters played a role in the extinction of the cheetah in India. Yet, the presence of less than two dozen historical specimens, most of which were either brought from abroad or of unknown origin, raises questions about the cheetah’s distribution in India and how their extinction transpired.
So far, only six of the 22 cheetah samples connected to India have been analysed genetically. In 1999, Divyabhanusinh sent genetic material from the trophies of three cheetahs hunted by the late Maharaja of Bikaner in Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, to David S Woodruff of the Department of Biology at U.C. San Diego. Woodruff’s analysis showed that the samples were genetically very close to an African cheetah sample, raising the possibility that the genetic differentiation between African and Asiatic cheetahs might be negligible. But four genetically-distinct cheetah subspecies have been identified since, and the genetic differentiation between the three African subspecies and the Asiatic subspecies turned out to be the strongest. So, could these three cheetahs have been imported from Africa?
The second attempt was in 2011 when geneticist Pauline Charruau analysed a skin specimen of a cheetah from Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh and became part of the collection at the Natural History Museum in London. This specimen was found to be genetically close to the Asiatic cheetah subspecies.
The third attempt was made in 2020 under the leadership of Neeraj Rai of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad. The genetic material was obtained from two cheetah specimens. Rai’s analysis found that the specimen from the Natural History Museum, Mysore, was genetically close to the Southeast African cheetah subspecies, while the specimen from the Indian Museum, Kolkata, was genetically close to the Asiatic cheetah.
In 2022, a fourth attempt was made by geneticist Stefan Prost who tested two specimens connected to India, concluding that one was genetically close to the Northwest African cheetah subspecies and the other to the Asiatic cheetah. On inquiry, it was found that the team tested only one specimen from the World Museum in Liverpool but inadvertently reported the results for two cheetahs.
While the error would be rectified, it would be better to disregard this fourth study for the moment.
The results so far have shown both African and Asiatic subspecies. But genetically establishing the subspecies is not enough to get to the bottom of the wild origins of the historical cheetah specimens. The three most important pieces of information for any sample are the location and date of collection and the name of the collector.
Of the 22 cheetah specimens, the locations of nine specimens are not available and five apparently came from foreign localities like Africa and Afghanistan. The remaining eight specimens are said to have originated in India but the precise location is not available for three.
The date on which about half the specimens were collected is also unknown. The collectors for about half the specimens are also unknown. These grey areas are significant when it comes to cheetahs since there has been a history of import into India. So while the full picture may never be clear, many details can still be unearthed by geneticists.
Surprisingly, the genetic analysis of the last Indian cheetahs killed by the Maharaja of Koriya has not yet been done. His family probably does not want to remember this infamous incident and his descendants complicate this dark history with bizarre arguments regarding the circumstances of the hunt. According to a note by the Maharaja’s private secretary in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, which included a photograph of the triumphant Maharaja posing before the three felled cheetahs, he shot the three cheetahs in one night. But his granddaughter claims he killed only one cheetah because it had become a man-eater.
Perhaps embarrassment coupled with anticipated public hostility with the onset of India’s wildlife conservation movement made the family lock up the trophies. However, given that numerous African wildlife trophies are still on display in the Koriya palace, there have been speculations that these cheetahs were perhaps hunted elsewhere and not in India. Only a genetic analysis can settle the matter.
Khandal is a wildlife biologist and Dhar is a researcher based in Ranthambhore, Rajasthan
