 |
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
oldrover Great Old One Joined: 18 Oct 2009 Total posts: 2146 Location: Wales Gender: Male |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
| lordmongrove Great Old One Joined: 30 May 2009 Total posts: 865 Location: Exeter Age: 43 Gender: Male |
 Posted: 07-02-2013 01:17 Post subject: |
 |
|
|
| A great little film. The lizard is a sail finned water dragon from tropical Asia. It is a large agamid related to the frilled lizard and the chinese water dragon. It is not closely related to the iguanas. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| oldrover Great Old One Joined: 18 Oct 2009 Total posts: 2146 Location: Wales Gender: Male |
| Posted: 07-02-2013 22:41 Post subject: |
|
|
|
One thing that strikes me about this 1864 photo is that a succession of thylacines were photographed in that corner of the North Mammal House over a fifty or so year period, right next to what looks to be exactly the same water trough in exactly the same position.
Speaking of thylacines, according to The Thylacine Museum's discussion on habitat loss in Tasmania by type, we find that the type reputedly favoured by the thylacine, grassy woodland, has declined by 90%.
http://www.naturalworlds.org/thylacine/history/extvssurv/extinction_vs_survival_5.htm
On a rare positive note from me though is on the previous page it notes that of the last five kills and one capture (1930-33) the two last kills and final capture were in the South West of the island.
http://www.naturalworlds.org/thylacine/history/extvssurv/extinction_vs_survival_6.htm
All of these are now in National Park areas. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| hunck Yeti Joined: 13 Jul 2011 Total posts: 64 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 19-03-2013 16:07 Post subject: |
|
|
|
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/shortcuts/2013/mar/18/scientists-clone-extinct-frog?INTCMP=SRCH
Article about cloning of extinct frog's genome from samples kept in a freezer since the 70s.
| Quote: | None of the embryos created survived for more than a few days, but the "Lazarus Project" team believe their work is a landmark moment for the new science of "de-extinction" – the artificial recreation of lost species that featured fictionally in the Jurassic Park films. "Now we have fresh cryo-preserved cells of the extinct frog to use in future cloning experiments," says team leader Professor Mike Archer of the University of New South Wales, in Sydney. "We're increasingly confident that the hurdles ahead are technological and not biological, and that we will succeed.
Archer says his focus is now on cloning the extinct Australian thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. However, at the conference talk was already moving on to targeting other extinct species, such as the woolly mammoth and dodo. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| oldrover Great Old One Joined: 18 Oct 2009 Total posts: 2146 Location: Wales Gender: Male |
| Posted: 19-03-2013 22:36 Post subject: |
|
|
|
Thanks for posting this hunck, I'd picked up that he was sniffing around the idea again.
I think this is worth a thread of it's own. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| hunck Yeti Joined: 13 Jul 2011 Total posts: 64 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 21-03-2013 17:26 Post subject: |
|
|
|
It would be pretty amazing for some of these creatures to walk the earth again.
Seems they implant tissue samples from the extinct animal into an egg from a related species. Elephants would presumably fit the bill for mammoth genetic material. Which animals are similarly related to thylacines? A marsupial of some sort?
It seems that far from being fearsome predators as the name Tasmanian tiger would suggest, thylacines according to Wiki were extinct or very close to it on mainland Australia 2000 years ago. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| oldrover Great Old One Joined: 18 Oct 2009 Total posts: 2146 Location: Wales Gender: Male |
| Posted: 21-03-2013 19:05 Post subject: |
|
|
|
Thylacines weren't very formidable, you wouldn't want a bite off one of course it'd probably be very nasty if they really meant it, but certainly they were no tigers. The last known thylacine bite to a human was 1933, on the arse of a man named David Fleay in Hobart Zoo whilst he was taking this film;
http://www.naturalworlds.org/thylacine/captivity/films/flv/film_5.htm
And Fleay only got bitten because, as brilliant a naturalist and important figure in the conservation of many rare Australian species as he was, he failed to read the retracted testicles, the straight tail held horizontally to the body, the pacing and most obviously the the threat yawn, as thylacine for ' do please f.ck off, you're freaking me out'. Anyway it was just a nip.
The closest relatives they have are the quoll, highly endangered, and the Tasmanian devil, also staring into the abyss. It's these animals that this technology should be used to help, because despite my lifelong love of the thylacine I really believe that, as a legitimate species at least, it's dead and gone and there's nothing that can be done to raise it from the grave. I say that because even if we could resurrect its biology we'd only end up with a replica. The reason being we'd never know how to socialise it properly, and I'm fairly sure that the animal's almost entirely unknown behaviour was sufficiently complicated for this to be a fatal hurdle to ever again having true wild thylacines. It's much more important to preserve genuine populations of the last remaining marsupial carnivores that are left.
Don't bother with the Wiki article it's full of mistakes the only decent place on the internet for info is 'The Thylacine Museum'.
As for their exit from the mainland Robert Paddle argues in the meticulously researched acid trip that is his book 'The last Tasmanian Tiger; the history and extinction of the thylacine', that they survived in South Australia into the 1850's and that the state government instituted a bounty scheme. Personally I think it's highly unlikely and that there's a more mundane explanation for the evidence he cites. I'm happy with the usual 4,000 or so years ago for their extinction on the mainland. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Zilch5 Vogon Poet
Great Old One Joined: 08 Nov 2007 Total posts: 1527 Location: Western Sydney, Australia Gender: Male |
| Posted: 26-06-2013 03:33 Post subject: |
|
|
|
This probably fits in here best - the attempts of an Australian scientist to revive (amongst others) the thylacine:
| Quote: | Resurrecting extinct species, including the Tasmanian tiger, seems the stuff of fantasy. But a dogged Australian scientist and his team believe they will do it.
Professor Mike Archer's small office at the University of New South Wales is stuffy - the windows and blinds are so old they no longer open - and chaotic, with bones, skulls and chunks of limestone everywhere, jostling for space with books and stacks of paper. The half-assembled skeleton of a huge cave bear rears up over the clutter. "It was too big for the room," Archer explains regretfully. It's very different from the light-filled eerie overlooking Sydney he enjoyed as the high-profile director of the Australian Museum in 2000, when he made headlines around the world with his ambitious plan to clone the extinct thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger. Although a little greyer now at 68, the palaeontologist remains as bold and indefatigable as ever. "One foot over the precipice - that's the fun area for me," he says cheerfully.
Read the whole article: http://www.smh.com.au/national/waking-the-dead-20130617-2ocz4.html#ixzz2XHmUdw9p
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
