Tweet
De-extinction - why should we???
Six Extinct Species We Could Bring Back
September 18, 2014
What does it mean to bring extinct animals back to life? Should we? Can we? Many scientists are working right now to answer these questions, particularly the last, with species as varied as the woolly mammoth and the passenger pigeon.
It’s not straightforward, or simple. We need certain components of the animal to resurrect it, such as DNA to reconstruct its genome. For that reason, “the only species we can hope to revive now are those that died within the past few tens of thousands of years and left behind remains that harbor intact cells or, at the very least, enough ancient DNA,” science writer Carl Zimmer noted in National Geographic in 2013.
Sorry, that means no dinosaurs roaming anytime soon. They went extinct 65 million years ago, but DNA can only survive — under the best circumstances — for 1.5 million years, according to Revive & Restore.
That organization, part of the Long Now Foundation, focuses on the “genetic rescue” of endangered and extinct species. Stewart Brand, one of the co-founders, explained in an editorial why science should even attempt to bring back animals that have left us: “To preserve biodiversity, to restore diminished ecosystems, to advance the science of preventing extinctions and to undo harm that humans have caused.”
Plus, he continued, the idea is awe-inspiring. “The imagination soars. Just the thought of mammoths and passenger pigeons alive again invokes the awe and wonder that drives all conservation at its deepest level.”
So which extinct animals are closest to coming back? Here we look at six.
NEXT: Massive cows
Auroch
No, cows aren’t extinct, at least not the tens of millions of beef and dairy cattle found across the United States. But in prehistoric times a different type of bovine graced the land. It was called an auroch, and it was big and ferocious-looking, weighing more than a ton and getting up to six feet tall, with long curved horns. The last known wild auroch died in 1627, according to the IUCN.
“The quest to resurrect aurochs dates all the way back to the 1920s,” with an attempt by two German zookeepers to recreate the cows using cattle with similar characteristics, writes Modern Farmer magazine. “By the 1930s, the Hecks [the zookeepers] had declared success, but the resultant animal — now known as ‘Heck cattle’ — were only vaguely reminiscent of actual aurochs, and much smaller.”
Since 2008, a group called the Tauros Project has been trying to bring back this cow, identifying what it called the “most promising” domesticated cattle for a breeding program. The goal: To revive a breed better at grazing than any that exist today, for the sake of the land and its biodiversity. By 2020, the organization notes, it hopes herds of these animals will roam around Europe.
NEXT: Pigeons once found in the billions
Passenger Pigeon
Passenger pigeons once existed in such great numbers in this country it was said when a flock flew overhead, it would darken the sky for hours. But their numbers dwindled quickly, thanks to hunting and technologies such as the railroad and the telegraph, which let hunters follow the flocks and sell the birds’ meat commercially.
Today, a project aptly named “The Great Passenger Pigeon Comeback” is working to revive the bird by combining DNA from Martha, the last of her species, with that of the band-tailed pigeon, the passenger pigeon’s closest living relative.
“The team has made progress, sequencing DNA from a number of passenger pigeon specimens,” we wrote earlier this month, on the 100th anniversary of the pigeon’s extinction. “In October 2013, they fully sequenced a single passenger pigeon, and in January and February of this year, fully sequenced a band-tailed pigeon. They’re close to what they’re calling a ‘first draft’ of the passenger pigeon genome.”
NEXT: A mammoth of a species
Woolly Mammoth
“The mammoth went extinct in the past 10,000 years, but left behind many remains with retrievable DNA,” writes Revive & Restore. Not only that, but “this species has been key in establishing much of the genomic research used for extinct species.”
Work on bringing back this creature closely related to African and Asian elephants has been happening for some time. In 2008, scientists published in the journal Nature a completely sequenced woolly mammoth genome, the first of its kind for ice age animals. Technological advances have allowed researchers to now edit those genomes, meaning theoretically, scientists could change the genome of an Asian elephant to match that of the woolly mammoth, Scientific American reports.
Along with the scientific advances have come many questions about whether to resurrect the mammoth. Harvard geneticist George Church, who has worked on both human and woolly mammoth genetic sequencing, explained why to NPR’s Science Friday: “Some people think we should only focus on the living ones. But one way of focusing on the living ones is providing keystone species that help the ones that are still alive to survive better.”
NEXT: A relative of a wild goat
Burcardo
In 2003, scientists brought back to life the bucardo, a subspecies of Spanish ibex that went extinct three years earlier. Celia, a 12-year-old female and the last of her kind, died when a tree fell on her and killed her.
Researchers preserved her cells. “Over the next few years a team of reproductive physiologists … injected nuclei from those cells into goat eggs emptied of their own DNA, then implanted the eggs in surrogate mothers,” Zimmer wrote in National Geographic. “After 57 implantations, only seven animals had become pregnant. And of those seven pregnancies, six ended in miscarriages. But one mother — a hybrid between a Spanish ibex and a goat — carried a clone of Celia to term.”
Sadly, the newborn died after just a few minutes due to a problem with her liver. In November 2013, scientists in Spain got funding to try again with cells of Celia’s that have been maintained in liquid nitrogen for the past 14 years, BBC News reported.
NEXT: A very strange frog
Gastric Brooding Frog
The gastric brooding frog was pretty odd: It used its stomach as a womb, swallowing its eggs, brooding its young in its stomach and then giving birth through its mouth. Yep, its mouth. According to the IUCN, it was last seen in the wild in 1979. It’s said to have gone extinct in 1983.
Fast forward three-plus decades and scientists have “revived and reactivated” the frog’s genome, according to a news release from Australia’s University of New South Wales, where the research took place.
“We are watching Lazarus arise from the dead, step by exciting step,” project leader Mike Archer said in the release. “We’re increasingly confident that the hurdles ahead are technological and not biological and that we will succeed.”
NEXT: A zebra cousin
Quagga
If the quagga reminds you of a zebra, that’s because its in the same grouping, a subspecies of the Plains zebra. The last of this equine went extinct in 1883, in the Amsterdam Zoo, according to the IUCN.
A century later, a group began trying to bring back the extinct species. The South African–based Quagga Project started in 1987. Today, researchers there are using selective breeding to recover quagga genes present in current Plains zebra populations.
“The Quagga was not an animal all on it’s own, as the name might seem to imply,” the researchers wrote. “It was a zebra, and as modern DNA analysis has shown, not a separate zebra species either, but one of several subspecies … of the Plains zebra, of which most are still living.”
September 18, 2014
What does it mean to bring extinct animals back to life? Should we? Can we? Many scientists are working right now to answer these questions, particularly the last, with species as varied as the woolly mammoth and the passenger pigeon.
It’s not straightforward, or simple. We need certain components of the animal to resurrect it, such as DNA to reconstruct its genome. For that reason, “the only species we can hope to revive now are those that died within the past few tens of thousands of years and left behind remains that harbor intact cells or, at the very least, enough ancient DNA,” science writer Carl Zimmer noted in National Geographic in 2013.
Sorry, that means no dinosaurs roaming anytime soon. They went extinct 65 million years ago, but DNA can only survive — under the best circumstances — for 1.5 million years, according to Revive & Restore.
That organization, part of the Long Now Foundation, focuses on the “genetic rescue” of endangered and extinct species. Stewart Brand, one of the co-founders, explained in an editorial why science should even attempt to bring back animals that have left us: “To preserve biodiversity, to restore diminished ecosystems, to advance the science of preventing extinctions and to undo harm that humans have caused.”
Plus, he continued, the idea is awe-inspiring. “The imagination soars. Just the thought of mammoths and passenger pigeons alive again invokes the awe and wonder that drives all conservation at its deepest level.”
So which extinct animals are closest to coming back? Here we look at six.
NEXT: Massive cows
Auroch
No, cows aren’t extinct, at least not the tens of millions of beef and dairy cattle found across the United States. But in prehistoric times a different type of bovine graced the land. It was called an auroch, and it was big and ferocious-looking, weighing more than a ton and getting up to six feet tall, with long curved horns. The last known wild auroch died in 1627, according to the IUCN.
“The quest to resurrect aurochs dates all the way back to the 1920s,” with an attempt by two German zookeepers to recreate the cows using cattle with similar characteristics, writes Modern Farmer magazine. “By the 1930s, the Hecks [the zookeepers] had declared success, but the resultant animal — now known as ‘Heck cattle’ — were only vaguely reminiscent of actual aurochs, and much smaller.”
Since 2008, a group called the Tauros Project has been trying to bring back this cow, identifying what it called the “most promising” domesticated cattle for a breeding program. The goal: To revive a breed better at grazing than any that exist today, for the sake of the land and its biodiversity. By 2020, the organization notes, it hopes herds of these animals will roam around Europe.
NEXT: Pigeons once found in the billions
Passenger Pigeon
Passenger pigeons once existed in such great numbers in this country it was said when a flock flew overhead, it would darken the sky for hours. But their numbers dwindled quickly, thanks to hunting and technologies such as the railroad and the telegraph, which let hunters follow the flocks and sell the birds’ meat commercially.
Today, a project aptly named “The Great Passenger Pigeon Comeback” is working to revive the bird by combining DNA from Martha, the last of her species, with that of the band-tailed pigeon, the passenger pigeon’s closest living relative.
“The team has made progress, sequencing DNA from a number of passenger pigeon specimens,” we wrote earlier this month, on the 100th anniversary of the pigeon’s extinction. “In October 2013, they fully sequenced a single passenger pigeon, and in January and February of this year, fully sequenced a band-tailed pigeon. They’re close to what they’re calling a ‘first draft’ of the passenger pigeon genome.”
NEXT: A mammoth of a species
Woolly Mammoth
“The mammoth went extinct in the past 10,000 years, but left behind many remains with retrievable DNA,” writes Revive & Restore. Not only that, but “this species has been key in establishing much of the genomic research used for extinct species.”
Work on bringing back this creature closely related to African and Asian elephants has been happening for some time. In 2008, scientists published in the journal Nature a completely sequenced woolly mammoth genome, the first of its kind for ice age animals. Technological advances have allowed researchers to now edit those genomes, meaning theoretically, scientists could change the genome of an Asian elephant to match that of the woolly mammoth, Scientific American reports.
Along with the scientific advances have come many questions about whether to resurrect the mammoth. Harvard geneticist George Church, who has worked on both human and woolly mammoth genetic sequencing, explained why to NPR’s Science Friday: “Some people think we should only focus on the living ones. But one way of focusing on the living ones is providing keystone species that help the ones that are still alive to survive better.”
NEXT: A relative of a wild goat
Burcardo
In 2003, scientists brought back to life the bucardo, a subspecies of Spanish ibex that went extinct three years earlier. Celia, a 12-year-old female and the last of her kind, died when a tree fell on her and killed her.
Researchers preserved her cells. “Over the next few years a team of reproductive physiologists … injected nuclei from those cells into goat eggs emptied of their own DNA, then implanted the eggs in surrogate mothers,” Zimmer wrote in National Geographic. “After 57 implantations, only seven animals had become pregnant. And of those seven pregnancies, six ended in miscarriages. But one mother — a hybrid between a Spanish ibex and a goat — carried a clone of Celia to term.”
Sadly, the newborn died after just a few minutes due to a problem with her liver. In November 2013, scientists in Spain got funding to try again with cells of Celia’s that have been maintained in liquid nitrogen for the past 14 years, BBC News reported.
NEXT: A very strange frog
Gastric Brooding Frog
The gastric brooding frog was pretty odd: It used its stomach as a womb, swallowing its eggs, brooding its young in its stomach and then giving birth through its mouth. Yep, its mouth. According to the IUCN, it was last seen in the wild in 1979. It’s said to have gone extinct in 1983.
Fast forward three-plus decades and scientists have “revived and reactivated” the frog’s genome, according to a news release from Australia’s University of New South Wales, where the research took place.
“We are watching Lazarus arise from the dead, step by exciting step,” project leader Mike Archer said in the release. “We’re increasingly confident that the hurdles ahead are technological and not biological and that we will succeed.”
NEXT: A zebra cousin
Quagga
If the quagga reminds you of a zebra, that’s because its in the same grouping, a subspecies of the Plains zebra. The last of this equine went extinct in 1883, in the Amsterdam Zoo, according to the IUCN.
A century later, a group began trying to bring back the extinct species. The South African–based Quagga Project started in 1987. Today, researchers there are using selective breeding to recover quagga genes present in current Plains zebra populations.
“The Quagga was not an animal all on it’s own, as the name might seem to imply,” the researchers wrote. “It was a zebra, and as modern DNA analysis has shown, not a separate zebra species either, but one of several subspecies … of the Plains zebra, of which most are still living.”
