Thanks to some scraps of DNA and a lot of scientific ingenuity there’s hope that some long-extinct creatures may walk the Earth again.
Best Suited For De-Extinction
Ever wish you could have a pet dodo to keep your budgie company while you’re at work? It might be able to happen. Big emphasis on the “might” part of the equation, however.
University of California, Santa Barbara ecologists have been looking into what animals would best be suited for de-extinction, whether it might be from genetic engineering, cloning, or dabbling with CRISPR advancements.
De-Evolution
The concept of de-evolution isn’t exactly new–scientists did manage to bring back an extinct species, the Pyrenean ibex, thanks to a common goat surrogate mother. The offspring survived only seven minutes due to genetic issues with its lungs.
10. The Dodo
What scientists like to call it: Raphus cucullatus
From the time of its discovery on the island of Mauritius in 1598 by Dutch explorers to the day the last surviving member Raphus cucullatus took its final breath, the flightless dodo lasted only 80 years.
New Visitors to Mauritius
Being stuck on an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean with not many worldly experiences to its credit didn’t exactly help the dodo’s situation when people finally spotted the species — especially when those people happened to be armed and hungry.
Even once the new visitors to Mauritius realized the dodo tasted lousy, the 20 kilogram (44 pound) dodo, not having any natural predators of its own, was wiped out by the foreign animals that hitched a ride with the humans.
