![](https://www.nextias.com/ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/2931473Screenshot_20220822-210619_Chrome.jpg)
In News
- Recently, the Texas-based biotechnology company Colossal announced their plans to use genetic engineering to recreate the Tasmanian Tiger and return it to the Arctic tundra, its original natural habitat.
About Tasmanian Tiger
- History:
- The animal went extinct in the 1930s and was native to the island of Tasmania, where it had lived for around 2 million years.
- Other names:
- Thylacine, A dingo with a pouch” or “a dog with a pouch”.
- Its DNA also has a lot in common with the kangaroo.
- Major threats and challenges:
- Humans have been blamed for the animal’s extinction, especially after a bounty program was instituted in Tasmania to protect sheep and other animals.
- The population today would be very susceptible to diseases, and would not be very healthy.
- Conservationists point out those resources could be better spent conserving species currently alive at a time when more than 1 million species are at risk of going extinct.
- Significance:
- Rebuild biodiversity: Scientists hope that establishing populations of animals like the Tasmanian tiger and woolly mammoth can help rebuild biodiversity.
- Human guilt: It’s hard to ignore that de-extinction projects are driven in part by human guilt for having caused many of these species to die out in the first place.
- Technology: One of the benefits of de-extinction is that technologies for bringing back animals that died out are also being used in conservation projects to boost the numbers of critically endangered animals.
- Other targeted species:
- Target species include the Aurochs, the ox-like animal depicted in the Lascaux cave paintings.
Do you know?
|
How would the animals be created?
- The scientists will work with stem cells taken from the closest related living species, the fat-tailed dunnart, which they plan to convert to those of a Tasmanian tiger by using gene-editing technologies.
- Colossal plans to essentially create a hybrid animal with many of the characteristics of a Tasmanian tiger.
- If the conversion works, the stem cells can then be made into an embryo, which can either be grown in a lab or transferred to a surrogate dunnart mother.
Source: IE
Previous article
Cloudburst & Flash Floods
Next article
India’s first observatory to monitor space activity