A group of scientists tries to “revive” in 10 years through genetic engineering to the Tasmanian tigerAustralia’s only predatory marsupial that went extinct in 1936.
The project contemplates extract the cells from a fat tailed dunnarta mouse-like animal considered to be the closest living relative of the Tasmanian tiger, to compare them with those of the extinct animal and thus determine their differences.
Professor Andrew Pask of the University of Melbourne said this will allow them to “modify all the DNA of this animal transform it into that of a thylacine “.
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Pask, who heads the Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research Laboratory (TIGRR), pointed out that “at the end of the process you essentially have a cell but you can do some sort of IVF (in vitro fertilization) cloning” to develop a living organism.
In addition to “resurrecting” the Tasmanian tiger in about ten years, this project also includes develop the embryo of this extinct carnivorous marsupialinside a test tube or using a fat-tailed dunnart as a surrogate.
“At birth, the fat-tailed thylacine and dunnart are not much larger than a grain of rice, so even an animal as small as a mouse can give birth to a thylacine,” said Pask, who has already developed the complete genome. of the Tasmanian Tiger.
Scientists from the Laboratory led by Pask, which is collaborating on this project with the American genetic engineering company Colossal Biosciences, aims to introduce the Tasmanian tiger to its natural habitatwhere they hope to maintain their usual predatory habits.
Tasmanian tigers have been extinct for over 80 years.
The thylacine, a marsupial with stripes on its back that resembles a tiger, came to inhabit mainland Australia and the island of New Guinea, although it disappeared from those places, with the exception of the island of Tasmania, about 3,000 years ago. . to climate change.
When Europeans arrived in Oceania in the 18th century, their population was concentrated on the island of Tasmania and its extinction was accelerated by an intense hunting campaign between 1830 and 1909encouraged by the rewards for finishing this predator who ate cattle.
Tasmanian tigers went extinct 81 years ago when the last specimen in the Hobart Zoo died in 1936, although it was officially declared extinct in the 1980s.
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