Prehistoric Yukon ‘cheetahs’ were fish eaters, not really cheetahs at all: study

Grant Zazula, a paleontologist for the Yukon government and one of the study’s co-authors, said the species’ identification in the territory was interesting because the pronghorn antelope hunted by their southern counterparts never existed there.

The researchers wanted to find out what the Yukon cats were eating instead, so they sent the fossils for analysis. The results showed a chemical signature that matched other fish-eating predators like grizzly bears, Zazula said.

In fact, the Yukon cats adapted to eat mostly fish, a unique preference compared to the more diverse diet favoured by their southern kin.

“We’ve never seen a cat behave like this before,” Zazula said in an interview Thursday.

He said the cats likely made the change to adapt to their new environment after travelling farther north into a Yukon that was vastly different 30,000 years ago.