-
Asked by chloewildman to Chris, Eva, Michael, Paddy, Philip on 22 Jun 2011.
Question: can extinct animals ever walk to earth again?
- Keywords:
-
Paddy Brock answered on 21 Jun 2011:
In theory, it might be possible, if there was a living species that was quite similar. For example, if you wanted to bring back a wild dog species that went extinct. You could take a normal dog embryo, remove the DNA and add the DNA extracted from a museum skin sample of the extinct wild dog species. You would then implant the “recombinant” embryo into the uterus (womb) of a normal dog and hope that there weren’t too many differences between the extinct and living species to mean the pregnancy didn’t work. They are trying to do this with the thylacine, a marsupial carnivore from Australia (http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/633.cfm) and (http://australianmuseum.net.au/The-Thylacine). However, many people (including me) think that this is a bit a waste of money when the money spent on all the expensive technology could be used to save species that are still living but won’t be for very much longer unless we do something about it.
-
Chris Jordan answered on 21 Jun 2011:
I’ll leave this one to the others! (Aftere all if someone brought back the dodo, what would we do with them?)
-
Eva Bachmair answered on 21 Jun 2011:
Mhh, what about backbreeding? Might be a possibility but also time consuming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeding_back
-
Michael Wharmby answered on 21 Jun 2011:
Nice answers Paddy & Eva.
Just to add though, the other thing is how long ago the animal in question died. If you’re talking a matter of a few hundred years ago, we can probably piece the DNA together. But older than that (e.g. dinosaurs) any fragments of DNA we find are likely to be pretty damaged after 65 million years, so we’d have to find something similar to patch it with. That’s before we’ve even started messing about with embryos! -
Philip Denniff answered on 22 Jun 2011:
This has been well covered in the answers here and other related questions, I don’t think there is any more I can add.
Comments
Paddy commented on :
@michael, good point, the thylacine was very recent
@chris, for ideas on what to do with dodos I thoroughly recommend any of Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series books for some light silly reading!
Philip commented on :
The re-introduced dodo would go the same way as the old ones, they would be eaten. Only may be this time they would be farmed.
Chris commented on :
I think you’d be right Phil, Dodo steaks and dodo egg omelette!
jay123 commented on :
i dont agree
jay123 commented on :
sorry that was my mate
tiggy commented on :
I think with years to come we could obtain dna of a preastoric creature from the mesozoic era and bring it back but although we found a well prasearved dinosor we dont have the eqwitment needed but we might who knows
Michael commented on :
Hi Tiggy,
The mesozoic is still the age of the dinosaurs – 65-250 million years ago. I’m not sure I want to see t-rex revived (too many nightmares as a child!). Perhaps something in the last fews 10s millions years **might** at a push be possible (cenozoic, the neogene period). Something cute and cudely though please. How about a micro-horse (merychippus – only about 1m high!): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merychippus
Philip commented on :
Just because we can does not mean we should (but as you say Tiggy we are a long way off the we can yet) the ethics of such an experiment should be discussed by society before it is undertaken.
A more likely scenario for scary animals would be an existing species learning an unsocial behaviour and that spreading through the whole of the species, rather than just one or two individuals. The type of thing I am thinking of is bears moving into towns in the same way foxes have, or crocodiles learning that the chicken farm is easy to break into. Where do you draw the ethical line and stop their invasion?
Michael commented on :
I didn’t say we should revive extinct species – I was just pointing out when the mesozoic was and, jovially pointing out that there are cuter, more recent animals than dinosaurs!
Reviving extinct species would probably be a bad idea, on the basis of the creature in question not being part of an ecosystem and then having to find a food source from another already balanced ecosystem. It’s also a bit dubious as these species died out for a reason and unless it’s as a result of man, they didn’t ought to survive, but then that’s heading onto philosophical/moral discussions about whether we have the right to create/destroy life, see Frankenstein for more – awesome book (there I don’t have an answer).
Also I think I have said elsewhere (or at least agreed with other comments) that we don’t have the technology now and although we might be able to develop it, whether we should is another question entirely.
Phil’s point about anti-social behaviour of animals is interesting. What is anti-social? In the cases listed that’s man encroaching on the habitats of the animal and the animal adapting in new ways to find food. Should we be stopping this? Should we in fact be encroaching on their habitats? Are we not being anti-social in doing so? Interesting point.