Animal Stuff

New Scientist has a pretty sweet article, but at the same time absolutely heartbreaking, about recreating extinct animals through their DNA, and ten species that they think could be brought back.

First, it’s best to get the bad news out of the way: they’re not going to be able to bring back dinosaurs. For it to even be conceivable to bring back extinct animals, you need to be able to completely reconstruct their DNA, like scientists are currently doing with the woolly mammoth. Unfortunately, sunlight and bacteria alter DNA over time, so anything more than 100,000 years old, let alone 60 million years old, like dinosaurs, isn’t possible.

But even though dinosaurs are out, there are still some pretty cool things that can be brought back. Some of these have found their way onto New Scientist’s list, and some pretty questionable choices have too. Anyway, here’s what New Scientist could envision being resurrected, and my comments:

Sabre-toothed Tigers

This is the first animal listed by New Scientist, and definitely one of the coolest. Sabre-toothed tigers are pretty well entrenched in our culture, through shows like the Flintsones and terrible movies like 10,000 BC, and I would love to see them brought back. They’re closely enough related to lions for surrogacy purposes, and they’re similar enough that I would love to watch those two species fight. While scientists estimate that Sabre-toothed tigers could only bite with about a third the force of modern lions, those enormous teeth would be pretty close to an equalizer. But most importantly, sabre-toothed tigers just look really cool, and I want to see one.

Neanderthals

This seems like a terrible idea. Other than satisfying the curiosity of how humans are different from Neanderthals, I can’t think of a good reason to bring them back. We’re only two or three years away from having a decent copy of their genome, but I don’t see any good that could come out of it; there’s way too much room for abuse. For instance, I could absolutely see some country, like China or Russia, trying to create a slave-race of Neanderthals. Would owning a Neanderthal be any different than owning a dog? It’s just such a moral quagmire I think we should leave the whole thing alone.

Short-faced Bear

I have to part ways with Stephen Colbert here, and say that I think it would be awesome to bring back the Short-faced Bear. I recognize that it is an enormous killing machine, and bringing it back would make it the largest carnivore on land, but I think that this is too cool of an opportunity to pass up. Unfortunately, it seems like it would be difficult to bring this animal back, because it’s so much larger than any potential surrogate animal. While I would like to see this animal brought back, I think we would be better served making sure polar bears don’t become extinct.

Tasmanian Tiger

This is an animal that I had never heard of before reading this article, but after reading about it briefly I am all for bringing it back. First of all, it went extinct in 1936, making its extinction probably our fault, so I would say we owe it to them. Second, it seems easy enough, so why not? Even though this isn’t really a tiger, which would be awesome, having more big, carnivorous marsupials wandering around would be pretty sweet.

Glyptodon

Glyptodons, enormous armadillos that were basically the mammalian version of an ankylosaurus, look so cool I can’t think of a single reason not to bring them back. Seriously, they just look hilarious, though probably pretty intimidating in person, despite being herbivores. Again, this is a species that humans probably hunted to extinction, albeit more than 10,000 years ago, but still, if we have the technology to bring them back, I would again say that we owe them. Unfortunately, this might be tricky; because glyptodons are so massively huge, much bigger than modern armadillos, surrogacy would be a pretty difficult hurdle to overcome. Still though, why not give it a shot?

Woolly Rhinoceros

Meh. Honestly, I’ve never been all that big a fan of rhinos, and actually never even knew that woolly rhinos ever existed. However, they do look pretty cool, and bringing them back seems simple enough, compared to most of these other animals, so why not? I wouldn’t have a problem if they resurrected these animals, provided, of course, that we bring regular rhinoceroses back from the brink of extinction.

Dodo

Even though they went extinct as recently as the seventeenth century, there are very few specimens available, making it difficult to pull enough dodo DNA to put together the full sequence. This doesn’t really bother me all that much; I recognize that humans were responsible for their extinction, but for some reason that doesn’t really bother me. The only reason I can think of for bringing back the dodo is that I wouldn’t mind eating one.

Giant Ground Sloth

Much like the glyptodon, this is a pretty cool, huge animal. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see a sloth as big as an elephant? Unfortunately, its size, which makes it seem so cool, also makes it one of the most difficult to bring back. While its DNA is readily available, the sloths that are around now are way too small to carry a giant ground sloth to term. Hopefully scientists would be able to figure out a way around this, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Moa

This is another animal that I have never heard of, a wingless bird originally native to New Zealand, and hunted to extinction by the Maori. When I went to wikipedia to read about it, though, I saw a picture that made up my mind about whether we should bring this back. We definitely should resurrect the moa, not because I especially want to see one, but so that it can be prey for Haast’s Eagle, which we should also bring back, and which was fucking awesome.

Irish Elk & Giant Beaver

I’m lumping these two animals together, because I basically feel the same way about each of them. They’re basically bigger versions of animals we already have, but those animals aren’t interesting enough for me to want to see a bigger version of it. So while if some scientist decided he wanted to bring one back I wouldn’t be upset, there are others that I would rather see geneticists focus on.

Gorilla

Yeah, gorillas are still alive, but New Scientist makes an interesting point in saying that the first animal to be resurrected is probably still alive today. Gorillas are threatened by extinction, a threat so real that scientists are saving tissue samples now just in case. This is a great idea, and I think that we should be doing this with all species on the verge of extinction.