"Extinct Species We Wish Science Would Bring Back to Life" Topic

"The permanence of extinction may soon go the way of the dodo. The idea of bringing species back from the dead is gaining traction as scientific advances bring it closer to the realm of possibility. Today scientists are meeting in Washington, D.C. to discuss how they might really be able to resurrect animals like the passenger pigeon or the woolly mammoth.

Let's go along with this for a bit and assume they figure out how to do this. We'll suspend all the ethical and practical issues surrounding actually doing it for now and talk about the most interesting aspect: Which species should they bring back to life?

There could be many reasons to focus on a species, such as usefulness for humans, benefits to the environment, righting wrongs, or plain old nostalgia. But we find ourselves veering rather quickly toward one criterion: awesomeness.

Sure the story of the passenger pigeon has its appeal: There were billions of them, humans came along, then there were thousands, and then there were none, all in the space of just a few hundred years. The stories of mega-flocks blackening the skies and trampling the landscape are amazing. But wouldn't you rather see a mega-bird? How about one that is 6 feet tall and carnivorous? Or a bird that is 12-feet tall? What about the biggest raptor that ever lived?
…"
Full article here.
link

I vote for the Saber-tooth tiger and the Mammoth.
They can live with their cousins.

And you?

Amicalement
Armand

Extinct animals?

Rational Homo sapiens.

Thylacine

English rugby teams winning in Cardiff.

Raglan

My vote is for velociraptors

Mosasaur and Megadon Sharks to really make ocean sports interesting.

Short faced bear… at least 3 states away.

Any of the North American elephants would be interesting.

Chalfant

Jeez, megalodons!!!! Gah! Ships vanishing without a trace….

Chalfant

Hot Elf Babes

As long as we are not bringing extinct animals to life and setting them free I don't care. Just because an animal did exist in an ecosystem before doesn't mean it belongs there now. We can't even work with what exists on the planet as is. Realistically they'll never be the same as the animals that did roam the planet. I find it pretty unlikely if they bring back the Passenger Pigeon it will behave the same as the original. They'll likely patch the DNA and create some sort of chimeric creature.

Homo Sapiens

Glenn,

We have all seen Jurassic Park thank you.

Raglan

Glenn,

You're on to something, let's bring back the Chimera.

Vince

Neanderthal man.

Moa

I've always had sympathy for Steller's Sea Cow;
(a dugong as big as a school bus).
Eaten to death by peoples, extinctified in 1780.

I'm just saying that unless they have a perfect genetic sample that could interbreed with a current species they'll currently need to either alter its DNA or else find some sort of 'patch' to make it work with a current species. So could you bring back a Dodo bird? Mmmm, probably they died recently enough that a complete genetic sample may be possible. Also seems possible you could find a bird capable of carrying the Dodo's egg. But you still have to manufacturer that egg and it seems more likely they'll try and fertilize that birds egg and create a hybrid. Even still they may have to trigger hormone releases each time to get it to turn out a certain way (see Chicken/T-Rex they mucked with).

Sounds like fun though, hopefully it works well.

Rational Homo sapiens.

Let's keep it to things that have actually existed, rather than some far-fetched fantasy!

I'm for Smilodon Californicus, the Saber-toothed Tiger.

I'm for Smilodons, too. Yes, they can be dangerous, but as long as the proper safety precautions are followed, and they're kept in secure compounds, I say go f--Wait, did you just hear something scratching at the door?

MEGALANIA PRISCA becuase Australia is lacking in dangerous fauna

Allosaurs would be cool.

Utahraptors?

Yeah, Utahraptors.

Let loose on the set of Entertainment Tonight.

I read that this new field of de-extinction is raising interesting issues

Is it humane to de-extinct an animal that will spend its life in captivity?

If you de-extinct a species and release it into the wild, have you not released an invasive species?

There are also theories to bring endangered species from their native ranges, where human impacts (poaching) are tough to control, to places where protection is more likely. Somehow the proposals always seem to land on Texas as that place though, so elephants, rhinos etc. roaming the range.

Dire wolves would be one of the more realistic candidates to bring back, even though it is tough enough to reintroduce modern wolves given the political resistance. Long-horn bison are another candidate.

Just FYI: There was a good science-fiction story written a few years back about the problems with reintroducing extinct species into the wild: Lion Walk by Mary Rosenblum. link

California Grizzly.
Passenger Pigeon.
Dodo Bird.
Mammoth to live in Alaska.
Tasmainian Wolf.

If man made it extinct, perhaps man can fix the problem.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Pterosaurs, to help rid us of the scourge of those pesky pigeons.

Let's fix our world up as-is for the animals we already have not quite killed off. Then after they are assured a future, we can talk about "resurrecting" something else….

Not to be 'politically (in)correct), but should we differentiate between species that NATURALLY went 'extinct' or only those humans have wiped out? I think there are something like 100 species a year (out of billions)…that go 'extinct' every year. Some probably get a 'helping hand' from humanity???

Personally, I vote for the GIANT SQUID and related cephalopods…..but I'm species-biased.

To paraphrase….

CLONE "EM ALL!
Let the gods sort them out.

Actually, why not go for more of the herd animals that could feed lots-o-people.

Then, once that experiment has gone horribly wrong we can fix it by creating predators to keep them in check.

Then when that experiment goes horribly wrong we can create bigger critters to eat the ones that are eating us.

Then when that experiment goes horribly wrong we can ask the UN to take over.

The world should explode shortly thereafter.

I'd back a Kickstarter to raise the mammoth.

Apatasaur ribs, barbecued.

My vote is for the Megalodon. Just love sharks.

Third vote for Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger/Wolf).

Went extinct in the 1930's. Could easily slip straight back into the ecosystem.

Cheers,
JohnG

Carolina Parakeet just because it would be cool to have them at the feeder.

Lost Pict the treehugger

I'd like to see the pre-human ecology of Ireland restored. There used to be so many unique and interesting creatures living there like pygmy wolves, giant elks, intelligent pigs, giant killer sea otters, edible badgers…,

Anything that would cull the herd of humanity, possibly genetically engineered to target humans that lack common sense and rational thought.

I'm for any of the North American magafauna. It would be cool to have giant sloths, mammoths, and mastodons still around. I used to go to our local museum and gaze at the mastodon skeleton displayed there and a full size reconstruction of the animal with some paleo-Indians.

Of course if we have those giant herbivores we'll have to have Smilodon Fatalis to even things out.

In a zoo? Everything. For release in the wild, the Dodo. Just the name alone makes it a worthy contender for first (and the fact that it is THE poster child for animals made extinct by human activity)

Prof. Mike Archer in Australia has sort-of resurrected a recently extinct 'Gastric Brooding' frog from specimens in a freezer. This species was one of a number killed off by international researchers not bothering to clean their boots, which spread a particularly virulent stain of herpes, which in turn wiped out several endangered species of frogs around the world as the researchers happily tromped throught the frogs ranges.

So far they have created viable embryos that have lasted 36 hours, the reports haven't indicated if they embryos were destroyed for policy reasons or just expired.

Researchers in cloning domestic animals have found that many domestic species are naturally resistant to cloning while others are relatively easy to clone, such as sheep. And that is with animals of the same breed, not even a different species.

Hobbits

Road signs that say 'Indrocotherium Crossing'.

None. Leave well enough alone. I've seen enough SyFy movies to know how it will turn out.

That and the introduced species running amok in the Miss and everglades, as well as cane toads in Oz…

There's a pattern there : )

Anything you want so long as it does not look upon us as lunch.

The Auroch!

I would like to see them clone Gasosaurus, Thunder Lizard and other bean eating dinosaurs.

The Shmoo. So useful, and sadly extinct….

Irish elk
Mammoth
Wisent
Any of the large herbivores

Large carnivores? Not so much. And forget the sharks. Once you are in the water, they are already way far above you n the food chain.

No spiders, either. They are icky.

The elephant bird of Madagascar. What would be cooler than a bird that stands three meters and weighs over 400 kilos?

Get one of those bad boys and you would have an AWSOME Thanksgiving.

Ha!Ha!Ha!. Excelent comment John!.

Amicalement
Armand

That poor squirrel in the "Ice Age" movies.