• Question: can we bring dodos back?

    Asked by ben117 to Anouk, Chris, Judith, Seyyed on 20 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Judith Sleeman

      Judith Sleeman answered on 20 Jun 2012:

      IF you could find the entire genome for the dodo (a whole nucleus full) then you MIGHT be able to put it into the egg of another bird and get a baby dodo. However, there aren’t many bits of dodo around and I think the chances of getting enough DNA are pretty slim with current technology.

      It took many, many attempts to successfully clone living animals (sheep and so on), so cloning extinct ones is a very remote possibility.

    • Photo: Chris Kettle

      Chris Kettle answered on 20 Jun 2012:

      I think we could as all we would need is one or so intact, well preserved cells (in theory) but its unlikely to happen as it would be expensive and the people who fund this research would have no interest in it as it wouldn’t make money for them.

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