Everything has its time - as the old saying goes.
Throughout the Earths history, species have come and species have gone.
For the first time though, humans have reached a point where they may be able to bring back
some species from the grave.
Some people argue this is a bad idea, others cant wait to see it happen - either way, it
seems like its going to become a reality in the not too distant future.
My name is Danny Burke, this is the Top 10 Extinct Animals Being Brought Back To Life.
Lets start off at number 10 now with The Dodo.
The Dodo is one of the famous extinct animals of all time - responsible for coining the
phrase -as dead as a Dodo-.
The last of these birds was thought to have died in 1662.
They were only found on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.
They lived in harmony with the ecosystem there and had no natural predators until humans
arrived and killed them off for food.
Scientists discussed the possibility of bringing back the Dodo from extinction during a TEDx
discussion in Washington DC in 2013.
The Dodos closest living relative is the Nicobar pigeon and some say that one of its eggs could
be fused with the cell of a Dodo to create a living Dodo!
Next up at number 9 we have the Mammoth.
This is perhaps one of the most famous extinct animals of all time - society has been obsessed
with these wooly elephant cousins for decades.
Interesting fact - although most of them died out about 10,000 years ago, a small population
of Mammoths survived on Wrangle Island off the coast of Russia until just 3,600 years
ago.
Humans were running around at the end of the bronze age during then.
Anyway, because of how recently they died and how many of their bodies became frozen
in the permafrost, scientists have actually been able to extract cells from mammoth remains.
The plan is to splice specific mammoth genes into the genome of an elephant embryo to create
a mammoth elephant hybrid with all the mammoth traits we recognise.
This wouldnt just be for no reason either, some scientists say that these new mammoths
could help prevent tundra permafrost from melting and releasing huge amounts of greenhouse
gas into the atmosphere.
Moving on to number 8 we have the Thylacine.
This species died out in the 1930s after being hunted to extinction in its native Australia.
It may look like a dog, but the Thylacine actually belonged to the Marsupial family
and was a relative of kangaroos and koalas.
A group of Australia scientists led by Michael Archer have previously worked on bringing
back the Thylacine from extinction.
They called themselves the Lazarus Project.
Their efforts only managed to capture some fragments of the Thylacine DNA and not enough
for a true clone.
Still, even this was enough for people to see the Thylacine as a strong candidate for
eventual de-extinction.
Next up at number 7 now we have the Gastric Brooding Frog.
This little frog was native to the Eastern coast of Australia and went extinct less than
100 years ago.
It got its name from its interesting method of reproduction.
The females would swallow their fertilised eggs which would then hatch into tadpoles
in the frogs stomach before being vomited out into the water.
Sounds gross but it worked.
Because of how recently they went extinct, Scientists recovered enough genetic material
to create living embryos.
They havent been used to create an actual Gastric Brooding frog yet but some argue that
even this means that they are already back from extinction.
Moving on to number 6 now we have The Bucardo.
The Bucardo was a wild goat native to the Pyrenees - the last one, a female named Celia,
died in January 2000.
Scientists preserved her cells and attempted to bring the species back from the dead.
They injected the nuclei from Celias cells into goat eggs that had been emptied of their
DNA, then implanted 57 of them into different goat surrogate mothers of closely related
species.
Only 7 of them became pregnant and 6 of those had miscarriages.
One of the goats successfully gave birth to a clone though.
Fernandez-Arias held the newborn calf in his arms - he said it was struggling to breath
and all of their attempts to help failed.
The calf died 10 minutes later, it was found to have a faulty lung caused by a genetic
defect.
At the time, it was the closest the world had come to de extinction - and still remains
a possible candidate.
Moving on to number 5 we have The Quagga.
The Quagga is an extinct subspecies of the plains Zebra and lived in South Africa.
The last wild Quagga was hunted to extinction in 1878.
The last captive one died in Amsterdam 5 years later.
Because of their close relation to plains Zebra, some scientists have created the Quagga
Project which is attempting to use selective breeding to create a new subspieces that strongly
resembles the Quagga.
In 2016, the project announced they had 6 individuals showing the prefered patter.
The goal is to have 50 of them and then move them to a protected area for continued breeding.
Will this count as the Quagga being brought back from extinction?
Let me know what you think …
At number 4 now we have Stellers Sea Cow.
This sea mammal was discovered by Europeans in 1741 on Bering Island in the northern Pacific.
It went extinct just 27 years later after being hunted into extinction for its meat,
fat and hide.
It belonged to a group of species known as Dugon-gidae.
The only surviving species of that group is the Dugong.
Some scientist hope that if enough Sea Cow DNA can be recovered, they can fuse it with
the egg of a Dugong and bring back the Sea Cow from extinction.
One major problem though is size.
Modern Dugongs are a fraction of the size of the extinct sea cow so the pregnancy would
extremely difficult.
Its a problem thats still being worked on though!
Next up at number 3 we have The Passenger Pigeon.
OK, this one might not be as cool to some of you guys - but give it a chance.
In the 1860s, there were billions of these pigeons across North America.
One account said that flock once passed over southern Ontario that was a mile wide, 300
miles long and took 14 hours to pass overhead.
Less than 50 years later, they were extinct - mainly due to mass hunting.
Enough specimens have been preserved so that scientists could reconstruct the birds entire
genome.
The plan would be to fuse this with the egg of the passenger pigeons closest living relative
- the band tailed pigeon.
However, there is no guarantee that the band tailed pigeon will tend to the egg or look
after any successful hatchlings.
At number 2 now we have The Auroch.
About 10,000 years ago, the prehistoric settlers of India and Eurasia domesticated the Auroch
- an animal that looks a lot like a cow.
Thats because all modern day cattle are the descendants of the Auroch.
The Auroch itself went extinct in the wild but scientists are hoping to bring it back
through back breeding.
This is where they breed cattle together that resemble the Auroch, they take the calves
that most resemble the Auroch and breed them etc etc until eventually you get something
that resembles the Auroch.
One example of this thats already happened is Heck Cattle - however, some people have
debated whether these even really look like Auroch - theyre also a lot smaller too.
Maybe theyll get their one day though.
And finally at number 1 we have the Carolina Parakeet.
This bird was hunted to extinction 100 years ago.
It was native to the eastern US which surprised me because its plumage would suggest it was
more tropical.
Its feathers were also the reason it went extinct - many of them were hunted so that
the feathers could be used in womens hats which were fashionable at the time.
Some remained as pets or in captivity but eventually they all died out.
As with many of the others on our list, their extinction being quite recent is a reason
why they make a good candidate for de extinction.
Some people worry though that if they were brought back, history would just repeat itself
all over again as their feathers would instantly become valuable.
Well thats all the facts and science talk out of the way - now its time for your opinion.
What do you think of de extinction?
Is it good to try and right the wrongs that humans made in the past - or are we toying
with nature in a very unatural way?
Let me know your thoughts - my name is Danny Burke, thanks as always for watching guys
and Ill see you all in the next video.