Catalog – Tech-Science – A wolf can rise

Thylacinus cynocephalus, also known as the purse wolf due to its physical build or the Tasmanian tiger due to the stripes on its back, was a purse predator and had nothing to do with wolves or tigers. In addition to kangaroos and koalas, he was one of the survivors of the extinction wave that affected the Australian megafauna 40 thousand years ago. The last specimen, known as the Benjamin, was lost at the Hobart Zoo at dawn on September 7, 1936, after being carelessly expelled from its driveway and frozen in the morning cold after the heat of the day due to the harsh weather in the area.

The main causes of werewolf extinction were reduced genetic diversity, viral diseases, and last but not least humans. The local state paid £1 for the heads of the predators emptying the sheep, but the ranchers were happy to destroy them for free.

Scary images of a strange animal sniffing and scratching in a zoo in black and white photography first confronted the general public with the power of humans to exterminate unknown animal species on our unknown planet. The wolf was burned in Australian mythology at the same time. They were thought to have been seen in some places, but at present they must not have been ruled out.

They have already tried

University of Melbourne staff announced on March 1 that a donation of $3.6 million from an individual is launching a program called Thylacinus Genetic Restoration Research (TIGRR) to revive marsupials.

A recurring theme in Australia for over two decades is the resurrection of werewolves. Since 1999, paleontologist Michael Archer has seen him resuscitate the animal. About $57 million was spent on the program, which was declared “fantasy” in 2005 and was discontinued.

It is optimistic that the past decade and a half has brought an extraordinary amount of progress in genetic engineering, one of which is the advent of CRISPR genetic engineering. The same developments encouraged Colossal, the biotech company, to revive the mammoth.

Does it hurt more than you use it?

According to Andrew Paske, the biologist who leads the TIGRR program, the work is only partly about resuscitating an extinct animal:

It’s not just a Jurassic park, nor should we play God. These things are largely needed to protect existing wallets

– Tell.

The closest living relative of the marsupial wolf is the marsupial. For revival, the only difference between organisms must be entered into the cat’s genome. To do this, in 2017, Pasquak made the complete genome of the purse wolf.

We’re at least another decade away from the technology of being able to genetically engineer an animal and turn it into another animal. Meanwhile, Bask and his team try to save the endangered marsupials because they are happy to eat giant frogs that have been introduced and multiplied and die of their toxins.

A serious counterargument to the resurrection of extinct animals is that it leads to a loss of biodiversity in practice. This is because maintaining a group of revived animals is very expensive and takes money from protecting the remaining environment.

According to Baske, the preserved wolf is an exception because its former habitat is 90 percent unchanged today, so reintegration would be easy and inexpensive.

(cnet)