• Question: Is it possible to revive an extinct species?

    Asked by anon-243384 to Pan-ngum, Natalia, Mick, Manjit, Filipe, Bruce on 16 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Natalia Brodaczewska

      Natalia Brodaczewska answered on 16 Mar 2020: last edited 16 Mar 2020 10:55 am

      Technically, yes. We may be able to bring some of the extinct species back to our planet. We need two things to be able to do that. One thing that we need is the DNA sequence of the extinct species. DNA is the code which tells us everything about a species, like how it develops and what makes it different from other animals. So if we have that, we have instructions for how to make a species. But then we also need a way of bringing this species to life. It might be possible if there are still closely related species living on Earth or if we could find a way to grow the animal in the lab. But we don’t know if the species would survive long term or if maybe it would go extinct again for the same reasons as it did the first time.

    • Photo: Michael Schubert

      Michael Schubert answered on 16 Mar 2020:

      It is technically possible, but it is not easy. To revive an extinct species, we need to know exactly what its DNA looked like to get it completely right. This means that recently extinct species (ones where we might have their DNA written down, or ones where we still have good samples of their DNA) have the best chance. Species that have been extinct for longer don’t have as good a chance, because our samples won’t be as good. This is why it’s not possible to bring dinosaurs back at the moment – because we aren’t sure what their DNA looked like, so we can’t fix the gaps.
      We also need a way to bring the species back to life, like Natalia said. If you have a closely related species still alive, you could use that species to help you – for instance, you could have a Javan rhino (still alive) give birth to a new white rhino (currently extinct). And then, once we succeeded, we would have to take very good care of that species to make sure we hadn’t made any mistakes bringing it back – and to make sure we didn’t just let it go extinct again!

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