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Living Dinosaurs!

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Anonymous

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I don't mean the sightings in Africa.

Do you think it's possible that the Military Goverment, and Scientists have cloned dinosaurs as tests and experiments? I just watched CARNOSAUR 3: PRIMAL SPECIES. And that what happens in that movie.
 
I'm not sure. What I am sure of though is that the director of that movie should be fed to dinosaurs, assuming they ever are cloned. :D

Joking aside, I think its very possible, if not probable, that the government is extremely interested in cloning. However, I don't think the object of their cloning would be resurecting long dead species. I think the current targets would be things such as vat grown tissue/muscles/organs, selective reproduction, etc. Although the thought of an anti-terrorist squad equipped with Utah raptors instead of german shepards is oddly appealing. :p
 
I agree with Bitter Monk, i think if the government was going to put so much money, effort and time into a cloning project they would have chose something different. Think about it what use would a bunch of dinosaurs be to anyone? What are they going to do? release them into Afghanistan and hope they take out BinLanden?
The only people who would clone dinosaurs are scientists that want to either research and cut up the dinosaurs or want to cage them up in a zoo and charge people for viewing the poor creatures.
Anyways i was under the impression that there hasnt been a good enough dinosaur DNA sample turned up that would even come close to producing a clone. They have got mammoth DNA tho but who cares about hairy elephants?
 
cloning dinosaurs

If they do suceed you can put em in my back paddock,cant wait till the electricity reader tries to get in the gate.Didnt they get some DNA from amber,or was that only insects?
 
I'd say there wasn't even a slight chance. For one, it'd be equally as publically shocking and hundreds of times as easy to simply clone a mammoth. Not only do we have dozens of freeze-dried mammoth bodies complete with original cells and DNA (whereas we'd have to get dino DNA through some very weird means and usually not even know what kind of dinosaur we were cloning, if it was a dinosaur at all), all you'd have to do is fertilize a mammoth egg and implant it in a modern elephant, since the species aren't all that far apart. What kind of animal could we make dinosaur eggs in?

I figure once they get cloning down, the first extinct animal they'll clone is a mammoth. Are there any stuffed dodos, anywhere in the world? I'd do that one next.
 
hachihyaku said:
.....Are there any stuffed dodos, anywhere in the world? ...
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Chambers St museum, Edinburgh, as I recall - although it may be a model rather than a specimen.

The amount of (possibly) dinosaur DNA salvageable from, say, a mosquito in amber (a la Jurassic Park) is, from what I've read, too small to do anything with, never mind cloning.

Mammoths, on the other hand, could be just a year or three away....

And if governments are going to start cloning, I suspect the first things they'll clone will be government members, or those who voted them in! :)
 
hey guys- this is what i kinda know about. I want to do my PhD on phylogenetics of extinct species. Was down in oxford last week speaking to Dr. Alan Cooper. The guy who cloned the complete mitochondrial genome of the giant Moa. Very cool guy.

One of his Post grads is working right now on Dodo DNA and how it evolved from mere pigeons. Should be in this months Science

DerekH- the chambers st. museum one is a model, although the curator of the museum- Andrew Kitchener- is a bit of an expert on Dodos so its probably quite a good likeness.

There are NO stuffed Dodos anywhere in the world. the sum of our anatomical knowledge comes from bones from the Mare aux songes swamp in Mauritius. A head and foot (badly rotten- the Ashmolean museum had a stuffed dodo till about 1720 but under a statute saying that if it got mouldy it had to be replaced meant that it was sent to be burnt. A canny curator cut off the head and foot. Odf course by this time there was no Dodos left to replace the specimen with.) i think there is also a head in Copenhagen museum but that is it.

As for where cloning is heading next-

Some New Zealand boys school organised a smeinar and invited many experts to it. Their school emblem is the extinct Huia (theres a picture on barndad.freeservers.com under "recently extinct animals) and the agreement was to start work on the cloning of the Huia which only disappeared in 1907. Very interesting bird species and there are 2 pairs of stuffed Huias in the Chambers st museum (one in "The world in our hands" and one in the ornithology dept.)

Personally i would like to work on the Thylacine or great auk. There are spirit preserved remains of both which would make any DNA studies easier to do.

Cloning is a long way off though. DNA breaks up very easily and for cells to be viable you need to have contiguous sequences.
 
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What is the status of the proposed Australian project to clone the thylacine?
 
Thylacine conspircay theories

They could just go out and catch a live one, according to some sources. Then they could present it to the world, as an example of Australia's superior genetic engineering skills.

Or maybe, they already have cloned thylacines, and they escaped, hence all the sightings. The Australian government is trying to cover it up, because, uh, the thylacines ran riot at an amusement park and ate a lot of tourists. Three times, no less, getting less exciting and more contrived each time.

:cool:
 
Digging back now to my brief tenure as a Biology major....

Under current cloning methods, the only real way to clone any extinct creature would be to inject it's DNA into an "emptied" embryo of a related species. Then that species births the clone.

Now with Mammoths, the problem is articically inseminating a full-grown elephant. I don't know if this has been done, but we could probably pull it off (although insemination could take decades itself...Elephants reproduce SLOWLY....).

The Thylacine might be more problematic. I don't think any large, wolf-sized marsupial carnivores exist anymore. But it IS a marsupial. They have pretty simple reproduction. They give birth to tiny young who "gestate" in the pouch. Perhaps a smaller marsupial could birth the Thylacine and then the infant could be transferred to a larger "pouch mother". I dunno. The logistics are baffling to me.

Dodos could be tough. In THEORY all you need is the right type of egg and a decent incubator. Besides the full set of DNA (iffy now). But you'd have to find an appropriate donor egg. Perhaps the massive Crowned Pigeons would work? They seem to be related (Well, they are HUGE pigeons like the Dodo....). Then you just hand-feed the buggers until they can eat on their own.

My hope is for the Passenger Pigeon. Recently extinct, and plenty of relatives running around.
 
the problem with cloning is that you need the chromosomes to be intact. With DNA from extinct animals its invariably fragmented and if you microinject it into a donor it just wont work. The order and position of the genes in the genome are very important.
There are enzymes the can repair double strand breaks but then how do you know that the right bits have been rejoined?
I agree with schmell that passenger pigeons may eventually be easier to do than most. and would also say the same about the Great Auk - its almost exactly like a bigger brother of the razorbill.
 
Schmell said:
the problem is articically inseminating a full-grown elephant. I don't know if this has been done, but we could probably pull it off
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Well, you've got to get a sperm sample for artificial insemination, and that sounds as good a way as any, I guess.
 
I gotta problem with the cloning of extict species.

Ok so you've got the nuclear DNA, you've an egg from a related species. :)

What you don't have is the appropriate mitochondria, the appropriate protein environment and the appropriate mothering behavior :( :(
 
Yeah, these are big problems. That's why i dont think many people believe cloning of extinct species is feasible.
Mothering behaviour might not be that important If enough is covered by instinct. The mitochondria- im not sure how important that will be since it's quite small (comppared to the genome) and there are only a few basepairs difference between related species.
The protein environment might be the most difficult. Presumably in a related species the proteins would be similar enough to do the job till the inserted genome could produce it's own.
Its not going to happen for a long time yet
 
Dinosaurs still living and breathing!

Can anyone tell me any good "dinos living" websites? Or post pics? Or tell me your theorys? Anything like that?
 
wow

thats cool...i always thought it was impossible that all dinosaurs died out...but why don't these ones leap out and snack on some tasty humans?!?:confused:
can someone explain this to me?? im only 13...:( wise beyond my years...:rolleyes: lol
 
what about the tuaranta? the kiwi "dragon" there is collony in n wales
 
That's a cool pic, Swan. Love that he has feathers ^_^ Where did you get it?
 
thank you 4 correctin me oh great mistress of the all powerful coffee maker :D
 
The tuatara is the one with the remnant 'third eye'. Sadly this is not visible at all in mature specimens. We have a stuffed one here that is about 30 years old and it just looks like a rather dull smallish iguana. From a taxonomic point of view this animal is very interesting as it is on its own evolutionary limb, separate from crocodilia, modern lizards and snakes.

The story of the Kasai Rex was very interesting. I have heard many such stories out of the old Congo since I was a kid (my great-grandfather lived up there in the 1890's to the 1910's somewhere).

Seems Africa still holds a few mysteries.
 
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Marion said:
They aren't the ones who weep blood are they?
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Thats the horned toad. Squirts blood at enemies. Kinda gross.
Disclaimer: photo contains no blood squirtage.
horntoad.jpg
 
Piscez said:
Thats the horned toad. Squirts blood at enemies. Kinda gross.
Disclaimer: photo contains no blood squirtage.
horntoad.jpg
Click to expand...

kinda gross...doesnt cut it!!!
bleurghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
 
that pic of the feathered dinosaur looks like it wasa snapped right off the screen from walking with dinosaurs (uk pseudo nature documentary series with computer gen dinos)
 
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