So just as I’ve started reading Jack Horner’s book, How to Build a Dinosaur, researchers claim to have brought a quagga back from extinction, a South African zebra-type animal that went extinct in 1883.
The project hinges on the idea that the quagga is not a separate species, rather a subspecies of the plains zebra. If so, Harley said, “it means that the genes may still be there in the current living population of plains zebra animals, but in a diluted form. By concentrating them using selective breeding, we can get back animals showing the full appearance of the original quagga.”
After four generations of breeding, Dr. Harley and his team said they’d done just that. These animals — quaggas 2.0 — roam Elandsberg Nature Reserve, in South Africa.
This is similar to the premise of Horner’s project to build a dinosaur… figure out which genes control ancient characteristics in birds (teeth, claws, scaly skin, tails) and switch those on, meanwhile suppressing the contemporary characteristics. Obviously these genetically engineered creatures will not be identical to their ancestors, but they could look like them.
Yes, I hear you, Ian Malcolm: “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
I don’t care, you guys. I really want a pet dinosaur. Just a small one.
Nuts to dinosaurs. I want a quagga. Maybe a dodo, too.
And do you realize the kind of money that could be made in reviving any of those species of giant-ass birds and training them for riding?
Clever Girl…
I don’t want a small pet dinosaur. I want a 5-ton, 40 foot snarling juggernaut of purple T. Rexy death to sic on John Boehner. I’ll bet he screams real pretty.
You really want a pet dinosaur. If it weren’t for the italics, I wouldn’t believe it.
Mary, suggest that and your other tips for ‘sincere’ writing to Paul Constant. I’d say right now now we’re at the six-year old level of mind fuck reading comprehension, but Paul is now talking about four year olds! Let’s shoot for this farce together!
The folks who claim to have re-engineered the quagga have a lot of geneticists questioning their veracity. The opposing view is that simply breeding zebras to have quagga-like coloring, does not a quagga make.
Would you folks Jonesing for a pet dino be content with a chicken bred to have fewer feathers and more scales? It would probably be really mean-looking.
“I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here: it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility… for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it!”
There is much we can learn from Mr. Malcolm.
@5 I would be happy with a dinosaur-looking creature. I do not need it to be genetically accurate. And I’m inclined to agree, simply looking like a quagga is not the same as being a quagga.
@6 So true.
@6
Who gives a shit about learning – we have Slog posts to make, Slog advertisers need to be seen, Politicians’ assholes we love smelling, then making pro/con comments – learning is for people who DON’T read, write or post on Slog.
Still, nice point Varia. Thanks.
But “chaos theory” says that if you try to revive extinct dinosaurs, they will go on a rampage, learn to operate modern technology and eat eight times their own body weight over the course of a day without having to stop to take a shit.
What makes most people really care about ecology is saving the megafauna, and you can’t completely blame them, they are soooooooo awesome. So my solution to climate change? Bring back the sauropods. We get a few herds of them in the midwest, & we might finally get a decent enough chunk of the population to care about ecology to save us all.
@10 you’d need to allow for greater range areas without hunting then.
Christ, @8, who pissed in your Cheerios? This is Dinosaur News. Go troll elsewhere.
@12: Just scanned dnt trust me’s comment history. Not big on thoughtful additions to the dialogue, that one.
@13 – I know. I’ve seen him around. But I always hoped things like Dinosaur News could be a place we could go for a respite from that shit.
@13, frankly, so few of his comments even make sense that it’s hard to tell what the fuck he’s going on about.
Chicken sized dinosaurs will give new meaning to the term “ankle biters”. But I can’t shake the feeling that we will create a new mode for new diseases. Everything people create has a serious downside and this sounds like a doozey.
Resurrecting a recently extinct animal is a great idea, because its loss hurt the ecology and bringing it back corrects that. Resurrecting one that went extinct many millions of years ago is not such a great idea, because the hole it left behind has long since been filled and it might become an invasive species.
Blue Oyster Cult said it best in their classic “Godzilla”…”History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of man.” Plus that quagga is creepy lookin’.
If I had a time machine, first thing I’d do is go back to the Silurian or so and get me a fish tank full of trilobites. I’m sorry, but the thylacines and chalicotheres and ceratopsians will have to wait their turns.
@1: Terrorbirds? Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?
No, it would be wiser to ride hadrosaurs. Or if you want something bipedal, go with therizinosaurs.
@10: If we had ways of bringing them back, many dinosaurs could do quite nicely in scrubby areas. Most herbivorous types evolved to feed on tougher things than the flowering plants that dominate today’s world, and so could live in on otherwise useless pasture.
@16: “Chicken sized dinosaurs”
You do realize that we DO have chicken-sized dinosaurs? They’re called chickens.
@19 – I’m just sayin’, if you can breed a chocobo, you’d be a bajillionaire.
@17: But as long as we kept them all on island, it would be fine, right? Hey, maybe we could charge people admission!