10000 to 7600 year old woolly mammoth DNA was found frozen in Alaskan tundra. So this raises the obvious question: Is the DNA good enough to sequence and use some day to bring back the woolly mammoth?
The work of U of A Earth and Atmospheric Sciences professor Duane Froese and his colleagues counters an important extinction theory, based on radiocarbon dating of bones and teeth. That analysis concluded that more than half of the large mammals in North America (the 'megafauna') disappeared about 13,000 years ago.
In the new research, DNA samples recovered from Alaskan permafrost showed that woolly mammoths and ancient horses were still roaming through central Alaska about 10,000 years ago, and possibly as recently as 7600 years ago. That predates the established record from fossil bones and teeth by at least 3,000 years.
The DNA samples were recovered from permafrost near the central Alaskan community of Stevens Village, on the banks of the Yukon River. Analysis of the samples from soils that formed between 10,000 and 7600 years ago showed the presence of mammoth and horse DNA together with animals typically found in the region today, such as moose and arctic hare.
I'm picturing the Holocene Park - kinda like the Jurassic Park but with animals from our more recent past. Saber tooth tigers anyone? Also, right before the Holocene came the Pleistocene epoch. Surely some critters from that era are frozen in the tundra too.
Which extinct species would you most like to bring back? I'm thinking Neandertals.
| Share | | Randall Parker, 2009 December 14 10:27 PM Nature Species Recovery |
They're a bit older, but seeing a couple of megalodons swimming just offshore would sure be nice.
I want to BBQ a mammoth.
Imagine a filet mignon cut that fills your plate...mmmm.
I've often suspected they became extinct in part because they
tasted good.
Actually, you could finance the whole thing by licensing "sportsmen" to shoot them for trophies. Can you imagine a mounted Mammoth head hanging on your wall!
JP Straley
I'd kinda like to see a giant sloth and a dodo or two.
All of them, but keep the giant hyenas in cages please.
They already sequenced the DNA of a wooly mammoth in 2008.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081119140712.htm
They already sequenced the DNA of a wooly mammoth in 2008.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081119140712.htm
Which extinct species would you most like to bring back? I'm thinking Neandertals
Are you that sure we'd win again?
Tom Bri,
We do not have enough land to bring them all back. The planet is too small and with human population growth and industrialization the area given over to nature shrinks every day. Tragic really.
rob,
I doubt Neandertals are as smart as us. Of course, that wouldn't necessarily stop them from reproducing. So maybe bringing back Neandertals is a bad idea.
One of my all time favorite TV shows was Northern Exposure. There was an episode where a spring melt uncovered a mammoth. Joel wanted to save it for science, but the local cut it up and ate it.
"I doubt Neandertals are as smart as us."
I wonder what Neandertals raised in a wealthy nation would average on the national IQ bell curve. Somewhere between the 10th and 40th percentile?
Even at the 10th percentile, that's greater cognitive ability than many Homo Sapiens.
Mthson: "Even at the 10th percentile, that's greater cognitive ability than many Homo Sapiens."
Greater than 10% to be exact!
Randall Parker,
We don't need millions of each species. For most of them a handful would do. Besides, we do have lots of space, if you consider it. Currently the Northern Hemisphere is very deficient in large animal life. Up till 14,000 years or so ago there were LOTS more big animals than now.
The gap was filled partially with more bison, small deer etc, sure. I would gladly replace half of the whitetail deer we now have, half of the cows, pigs and sheep, for a wider variety of pleistocene life.
Who knows, some of those animals are sure to be delicious, so it wouldn't be hard to get farmers to raise them and people to eat them.
if we have the sequence of the mamoth already,then what technical apsects are preventing us from cloning one?