13 Extinct Species That Could Be Resurrected

from a 2,000 pound bear to savage saber-toothed cats here a 13 extinct species that could be resurrected the extinction events so as we start off the episode here's an FYI for you you will be hearing the term de-extinction here and there and if you are unfamiliar with that term it basically refers to the process of creating an animal that resembles an extinct species the cloning is usually the number one option as you'll see with several criticism including the woolly mammoth a selective breeding is another technique which is being used with the quagga and as you'll learn there is some controversy attached to bringing some of these extinct species back to life so be sure and tell us what you think about all that in the comments 13 passenger pigeon there were billions of these birds in the skies of North America before habitat loss and hunting drove them into extinction the last specimen named Martha died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914 but experts say there are enough pigeon skins and skeletons that exist that would contain enough genetic material to bring the bird back to life when the technology is suitably advanced rock pigeons would serve as surrogates and the offspring would have passenger pigeon traits now one reason cited for the return of these birds is that they could help maintain woodland diversity in the eastern part of the US twelve quagga this subspecies of plain zebra was native to South Africa it had stripes on its face and Apatow so but was solid brown on its backside hunters coveted the animal for that hide which inspired some to Khalid a horse Tiger of the quagga extinction can largely be blamed upon a combination of hunting and competition with livestock for grazing land the last known specimen died in 1883 at the amsterdam zoo now in South Africa today there is an effort underway called the quagga project it plans to recreate the extinct equine through selective breeding of the modern Plains zebra which experts say is technically the same species as the quagga that breeding lineages hope to produce animals that visually resemble the extinct beasts SF 2016 there were six individuals that evidenced stripe patterns similar to that of the quagga 11 elephant birds once found on Madagascar these were huge flightless birds that weighed more than a thousand pounds and stood nearly 10 feet tall they produced the largest bird eggs known weighing some 22 pounds and measuring around 13 inches that in its day was the largest bird in the world and was referenced by Marco Polo himself during his travels to the east in the 13th century and in fact the name originates from one of his accounts while he referred to a bird that was strong enough to quote seize and elephant with its talons and quote hunting is thought to be the primary factor in the birds extinction by around 1200 AD now there is a chance for these animals to make a return appearance since ancient DNA has been recovered from the eggshells but it might be too corrupted for use in de-extinction and did you know these big birds the closest living relative today is the small Kiwi native to New Zealand ten woolly rhinoceros now it's hard to imagine a rhino with shaggy fur but this beast lived during the Pleistocene in the cold Tundra of present-day northern Europe so it needed all the insulation it could get adult specimens could weigh up to 6,000 pounds and grow more than six and a half feet in addition to the long thick fur the animal had thick legs a stocky body and small is before a completely preserved specimen was discovered in a tar pit in Poland the Rhino shape was known only from prehistoric cave paintings in which it was often portrayed while the woolly Rhino is often compared to the modern-day white rhinoceros its DNA is a closer match to the Sumatran rhino and its closest excellent relative as well now not unlike the woolly mammoth the woolly Rhino died out around 10,000 years ago and remains of this animal have often been well preserved in the Arctic permafrost 9 Neanderthals okay now here is one animal you might not have expected to pop up on a list but there is something of a debate going on as to whether or not to resurrect Neanderthals now a conundrum is that in cloning Neanderthals we might in effect the cloning ourselves that's because there are many out there who are pined that the under tools are really a subspecies of modern humans and the DNA has been identified in Asian and European populations or though not in African populations so that would suggest that some interbreeding was going on between anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals as recently as 40,000 years ago a scientists have completed work on a rough draft of that Neanderthal genome so it's likely more a matter of when then if the cloning would occur a while many argue that it's unethical to resurrect these archaic humans others say such an action would be a great benefit to science and would help us to better understand ourselves eight short-faced bear polar bears and Kodiak bears are the largest bears on the planet today although polar bears tend to get the edge as they can weigh more than 1500 pounds and approach some ten feet in total length but the short-faced bear which lived around eleven thousand years ago in North America could weigh more than two thousand pounds and stand up to twelve feet tall or maybe this is one beast you don't necessarily want to see a resurrected however experts have already salvaged DNA from the best fossils that were preserved in permafrost and it seems the animal best suited for cloning duty would be the spectacled bear found in South America now or on eclis that modern-day relative is one of the smallest of today's air signs weighing about 440 pounds and FYI the prehistoric bears are called short-faced because the snouts were unusually short compared to those of other bear species 7 paren Ian ibex it's Spanish common name is bucardo and it was one of four Spanish ibex native to the Iberian Peninsula the animal became extinct in 2000 but later became the focus of an attempt to bring it and additional extinct species back to life an attempt was made in 2003 to clone a female ibex and it did result in the birth of a baby ibex but it was born with a severe lung defect and it survived for only seven minutes before suffocating however that birth was seen as a triumph for cloning technology and has since been viewed as the first successful effort to revive an extinct species efforts to recreate the Pyrenean ibex were announced by scientists again in 2013 but in a technical sense you could say the animal was already successfully cloned [Music] six mullah at one time these were the largest birds in the world the flightless animals were native to New Zealand and could stand 12 feet tall and weighed about 250 pounds hunting by the Maori and habitat reduction combined to drive the big birds into extinction by 1445 but preserve specimens and ancient eggshells have yielded moer DNA that was found intact which makes them a prime candidate for cloning did you know that in the 1980s the complete foot of a MOA was discovered on Mount Ellen on the South Island and many people initially thought it was the mummified claw of a theropod dinosaur five woolly mammoths have you ever heard of a mammoth and well that term refers to the product of an Asian elephant with the DNA of an extinct woolly mammoth a researchers claimed that just a few years away from successfully creating such a hybrid embryo the Asian elephant was chosen because it is the closest living relative to the woolly mammoth and those critters went extinct recently enough that many intact fossils have been located frozen in the Arctic tundra scientists say the cloned animal would appear much like an elephant but would exhibit mammoth qualities including shaggy hair smaller ears and blood that is better adapted for colder habitats woolly mammoths vanished from the mainland around 10,000 years ago with isolated populations going extinct as recently as 4000 years ago for Tasmanian Tiger thylacine was the largest carnivorous marsupial known in modern times it gets that target reference due to the striping found on the animals lower back native to continental Australia New Guinea and Tasmania it was the largest predator in oz some 3,500 years ago until human settlers introduced dingoes the last known tasmanian tiger is thought to have perished in 1936 with bounty-hunting cited as a major cause for their extinction because thylacine has not been extinct all that long there are many intact specimens that could still retain viable DNA the genetic material has been successfully sequenced and there are various projects underway to clone the tasmanian tiger back to life and by the way we earliest said the animals were thought to have perished because there have been many reported sightings of thylacine in the wild ever since its alleged extinction now if you've ever seen one be sure and tell us in the comments three cyber tooth cats cats can be kind of a misnomer here because not all of these predatory animals were really cats per se many members of this group were not closely related to modern-day fielitz many of them belong to other families of Fila forms or cat-like carnivores the best-known of the lot was small Adan one of the most famous prehistoric mammals overall of course it was known for its canine teeth which measured around 11 inches the large is found among saber-toothed cats now it went extinct relatively recently around 10,000 years ago many intact fossil specimens have been discovered the largest collection of which has been found at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles DNA has been recovered in the animals fossils which presents the possibility of cloning but so far that material has proven resistant to being successfully sequenced - dodo now this bit of course has pretty much become the poster critter for extinct animals the large flightless bird was native to Mauritius located in the Indian Ocean it was fearless of humans and so it was easily killed eventually driven into extinction only 80 years after it was initially described in the late 16th century while the Dodos entire genome has been sequenced no steps have been taken recently to resurrect the bid a chance of sports reappearance might be favorable though given that our many bones and tissues preserved a clone might be created because it has a close relative still living today and that would be the Nicobar pigeon found in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands one dinosaurs now no doubt this is the animal most of us would like to see resurrected and it would be an epic experience to be able to run with t-rex and velociraptors in a real world vision of a Jurassic Park but there's just one thing wrong with that picture and that is it's impossible to recreate or the extinct dinosaurs experts say that in order to do that that need an uncontaminated sample of the creatures DNA but that genetic material is thought to survive for about a million years or so a given that t-rex went extinct around 65 million years ago the shelf life of any obtainable fossilized DNA would have long since been corrupted so while it looks like the dinosaurs will not be coming back any time soon you can still visit some real-life Jurassic park's palmas horas dinosaur Park and Australia has more than 150 animatronic beasts that can measure more than 70 feet long and stand more than 30 feet tall the dinos include t-rex velociraptors and Triceratops now if you've ever been there I know of any other real-life Jurassic park's let us know about

Channel: Epic Wildlife

Views: 1,524,862

Rating: 4.6915483 out of 5

Keywords: animals, adventurous, adventure, trail, wild, wildlife, bite, brave, wildife, scary, sea creatures, sea, giant, adventure show, desert, its huge, dangerous, extinction, extinct, resurrected, s[ecies, extinct animals, top 10, creatures, biggest extinct animals, most dangerous animals, facts, scariest animals, endangered animals, endangered species, scary animals, species, prehistoric creatures, humans, rare, list, animal extinction, biggest prehistoric animals, most dangerous extinct animals

Id: Fow6waAKEk0

Length: 12min 16sec (736 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 18 2018