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de-extinction

Almost a dire wolf

April 22, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Researchers around the world are working on what some call the ‘de-extinction’ of iconic animals of the past such as the wooly mammoth, the dodo, and the Tasmanian tiger.  The idea is to decipher the genome from DNA of preserved specimens and, using the tools of modern genetic engineering and cloning technology, alter the DNA of closely related modern species to recreate the extinct species.

A company called Colossal Biosciences recently announced that it has brought back the dire wolf, a species that has been extinct for 10,000 years.  Dire wolves have white coats and are larger than modern wolves, have more powerful shoulders, a wider head, and larger teeth and jaws.  Colossal is now raising three wolves they have engineered at a 2,000-acre site at an undisclosed location.

 The wolves were created by taking the DNA of modern grey wolves and editing 14 genes substituting ones from ancient dire wolf specimens.  Wolves have about 19,000 genes, so the changes from the grey wolf genome are very minor but enough to produce an animal that looks just like a dire wolf.  But is it a dire wolf?

It really isn’t.  Ancient DNA is always greatly damaged.  Only parts of it survive.  We don’t actually have the complete genome of the dire wolf.  What we have is bits and pieces that, thanks to modern technology, allow us to produce a phenotype of a dire wolf; that is, an animal with the same observable features. 

Whether this accomplishment is a worthwhile and appropriate thing to do is a question that continues to be debated.

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The Return of the Dire Wolf

Photo courtesy of Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Is de-extinction possible?

January 28, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Advances in genomics have created the possibility of bringing back extinct species from the past by making use of recovered DNA from preserved specimens.  Companies attempting to “de-extinct” iconic species have received hundreds of millions of dollars from venture capitalists.

These companies are trying to bring back iconic species that include ivory-billed woodpeckers, Tasmanian tigers, dodos, passenger pigeons, and woolly mammoths. 

Efforts to recreate extinct species are controversial.  The arguments in favor include the positive effects on ecosystems when keystone species are restored, and the excitement generated about conservation in general.  The opposing view is that concentrating all this effort on these restorations diverts attention and funding from more urgent conservation work.

A more nuanced viewpoint that has emerged is that actually de-extincting species is not possible.  The genome of these vanished species cannot be reconstructed perfectly.  Specimens are not cryopreserved from when the animal died.  What can be retrieved is at best significant fragments of the genome.  These are combined with DNA from related contemporary animals to produce the new species.   

As a result, what emerges are proxies.  They are animals that are similar to extinct animals – in some cases convincingly so – but they are not the same species that existed in the past.   They may be able to fill the same ecological niches and they may have similar behavior.  But they are not de-extincted specimens of the past species.  Is it worth doing?  Quite possibly but it’s not actually bringing back what is gone.

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Despite Biotech Efforts to Revive Species, Extinction Is Still Forever

Photo courtesy of Grazelands Rewilding.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Resurrecting The Tasmanian Tiger | Earth Wise

September 16, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Company plans to resurrect the Tasmanian Tiger

Tasmanian tigers earned their nickname because of the stripes along their back, but they were not felines.  In fact, they were carnivorous marsupials, the type of Australian mammal that raises its young in a pouch.

Tasmanian tigers, also known as thylacines, were once native to the Australian mainland, as well as the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea.  Dog-like in appearance, Tasmanian tigers were extensively hunted after European colonization.  The last known Tasmanian tiger died in captivity in 1936.

Nearly 100 years after its extinction, the Tasmanian tiger may live once again.  Scientists in Australia and the United States have launched an ambitious multimillion dollar de-extinction project to genetically resurrect the Tasmanian tiger.

In order to bring back the animal, researchers will have to take stem cells from a living species with similar DNA – like the fat-tailed dunnart – and use gene editing techniques to turn them into “Tasmanian tiger” cells – or the closest approximation possible.  The team will need new assisted reproductive technologies to use the stem cells to make an embryo, which will then have to be transferred into an artificial womb or a dunnart surrogate to gestate.  The research team is optimistic that there could be a hybrid baby Tasmanian tiger in 10 years. 

The ambitious project is a partnership between scientists at the University of Melbourne and the Texas-based company Colossal Biosciences.  This is the second de-extinction undertaking by Colossal Biosciences, which announced last year it planned to use its technology to recreate the woolly mammoth, and return it to the Arctic tundra.

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Scientists want to resurrect the extinct Tasmanian tiger

Tasmanian tiger: Scientists hope to revive marsupial from extinction

Photo credit: E.J. Keller, from the Smithsonian Institution archives, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

De-Extinction: Opening Pandora’s Box

March 21, 2016 By WAMC WEB

https://earthwiseradio.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/EW-03-21-16-De-Extinction.mp3

De-extinction, or the act of bringing extinct species back from the dead, has been riding a wave of enthusiasm. Nearly 2 million people have watched Steward Brand’s TED talk on the topic, and Beth Shapiro’s book How to Clone a Mammoth has received rave reviews.

[Read more…] about De-Extinction: Opening Pandora’s Box

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