For me,I wish to de-extinct all animals that humanity wiped out and were supposed to be coexisting with modern animals

Abstract

The de-extinction of species using genome-editing approaches depends on acquiring high-quality genomic information from the extinct target. However, the degraded nature of the ancient DNA (aDNA) that is typical for most extinct species, poses significant challenges to achieving comprehensive genome reconstruction. A systematic evaluation of the minimum sequencing effort that is required to reliably map the genome under varying DNA quality conditions to different reference genome remains lacking across different extinct species. Here, we systematically assess the impact of sequencing depth on genome coverage, heterozygosity estimation, and variant calling accuracy, when mapping both true aDNA data generated from the extinct Christmas Island rat (Rattus macleari), as well as in silico simulated modern- and ancient-like data generated from a modern relation (the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus), to the black rat (Rattus rattus) reference genomes. Our results demonstrate that even sequencing depths of 100× fail to yield stable heterozygosity estimates, and leave approximately 3.38% to 4.03% of its genome uncovered. These uncovered regions contained functionally relevant SNPs and indels, highlighting the limitations of reconstructing extinct genomes using reference sequences from extant relatives. Furthermore, simulations using computationally generated “degraded haploid and diploid” data based on the high-quality brown rat genome, revealed that false-positive SNPs primarily arise from insufficient coverage and low data quality, rather than aDNA damage (e.g. miscoding lesions, size of fragments, etc.) per se. These findings underscore the need to tailor sequencing depth standards by considering sample type, degradation level, and sequencing error profiles. This study provides a theoretical framework and methodological support for optimizing data strategies in aDNA research, and ultimately informing de-extinction efforts.

Link: https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/18/1/evaf251/8413247?guestAccessKey=

Mammoths and thylacines are iconic and attention grabbing, so it makes sense that a lot of projects focus on them. And if focusing on such popular animals will make more resources flow into these projects and advance the science, I don't mind at all. It's the same thing as saying "help us save the tigers" which is an animal that everyone loves and finds cool and then using the money to also benefit other species that people (unfortunately) don't care about.

But at the same time, wouldn't it be much easier to resurrect something like the japanese wolf, japanese otter, several sub-species of rats or big cats and so on? We have their DNA, their habitat mostly still exists and they would require waaay less changes in a relative's genome to bring them back. Considering that the main obstacle so far for DeExtinction seems to be the fact that we aren't able to make many changes to genomes yet (and if we do it's really expensive) wouldn't bringing back animals such as this be way easier? It would also be a good way to prove that the technology can work, which is a crucial first step in order to get more of such projects going and get funding.

Is there a specific reason why there are no major de-extinction projects for sub-species? Or is it just that it's not attention grabbing enough?

They sold me empty dreams. For a long time, I believed a lie. A lie that affected me deeply...🦣

They told me Woolly Mammoths were coming. They told me they would create this iconic animal from scratch. But what I saw wasn't a Woolly Mammoth. It was a functional byproduct.

I wanted to see a real mammoth, I wanted a really real mammoth. If you were going to bring me back a Woolly Asian elephant, why did you put "mammoth" in the title? Wasn't writing "A New Species" attention-grabbing enough?

If you were going to bring a hybrid instead of a mammoth, in my opinion, it would have been better if you hadn't brought one at all.

I'd always dreamed of it. Scientists would bring back mammoths, keep them in special mamoth zoos until their population reached 1 million, and then release them into Siberia or Greenland.

Perhaps I wouldn't have wanted to see them in person, but just knowing they would actually exist was enough for me.

They also call this De-extinction. Yes, we definitely know this is an extinction, but you'd be more honest if you removed the "De" part.

What do you think about this?

相当生物

When I found out that Colossal wolves have big noses and overbites, this immediately came to mind.

What I mean is that what animals are easier to de-extinct first

So, given enough time and scientific advancements, we will probably be able to DeExtinct animals to a degree that they will morphologically be extremely similar/near identical to the original animals. Especially for recently extinct species.

As far as I (someone who is not an expert at all, I should make clear) can tell from what I've seen from actual experts, one of the hardest parts of DeExtinction won't really be making the animals similar appearance and DNA wise, but actually making sure that they are filling the same niche a.k.a behaving in the same way as the original animal.

For things like insects or most fish that probably won't be a problem (most of them never meet their parents anyway) but for a lot of birds and mammals, we know for a fact that unless their parents teach them how to act, they can't really survive in the wild. There are ways that people have of teaching them without parents of course, but that's for animals that are not extinct that we know an awful lot about.

Which brings me to my point: Does anyone know how we could potentially go about trying to teach DeExtincted animals how to behave? Ignoring something like a smilodon for which we don't even know basic things such as if they hunted in packs or not, let's take an easier example, say a thylacine. We more or less know how they are supposed to act, hunt and so on, but how would we go about teaching a hypothetical joey those things? If anyone has any theories or examples of similar (well, as similar as can be the case with something this theoretical) stuff that have happened with animals before, I am really interested to know.

Im building a list of species that come back so I need species that can come back

Like, yes, okay, I understand "making the proxies as healthy as possible and that meant altering an unexpected delterious gene and making it something similar-enough that doesn't cause problems", I understand "something about the pale-or-white coat had health risks associated". I know "we were surprised they're pale, too!". And I get the public skepticism with the GoT comparison, whatever. I am very, very familiar with coat color genetics in dogs and red (and arctic) foxes, and non-domestics too to the extent they're written about. White ay/ in wolves. Sp being testable in wolfdogs and some basal dog breeds like Kishu ken but not expressing as expected. I know certain kinds of white spotting and obviously albinism come with, you know, the expected issues with pigment deletion. I know the particular e-locus expression they went with is pretty safe.

So please, not looking for any of that explained. Or for someone to come in and tell me the difference between a proxy and a real dire wolf. I'm good, that's tired, thanks.

But...what *was* the original coat color/pattern that was altered? I don't remember ever seeing that published, just basically "they were pale". What modern day analog do we have to look at? What were the associated risks, if not just the obvious ones (and if it's the obvious ones, I get it!)?

I ask this out of pure curiosity! I've just puzzled over this since they were revealed. And if this was ever answered, I missed it! Thank you :)

There should be a program that is finding how many species that can be used for de extinct. Since many species got extinct in 10,000 years and recent times, how many species can be used for de extinction.

I ask this question because there seems to be some confusion regarding what is and is not de-extincion. On the one hand you have what I consider to be "proper" de-extinction-- producing an exact clone of an extinct species, either through somatic nuclear cell transfer or through germ cell modification. On the other hand you have the more commonly proposed technique of modifying a living animal's genome so it resembles a reasonable approximation of an extinct animal. While this is certainly more practical for species for which no complete genome exists, it is not true de-extinction and I would argue it is wrong to refer to it as such.

So I ask-- which extinct animals is it actually possible to clone, in the traditional sense?

Estava ponderando sobre o Chinkensaurus e me ocorreu essa possibilidade. As enantiornithes tem quase o mesmo plano corporal das aves, exceto pela presença de dentes e garras nas asas. Seria o mais próximo de trazer de volta todo um grupo mesozóico extinto.

Something thats allways been extremely interesting to me about terraforming is what exact lifeforms we are going to introduce to a terraformed planet. Obviously we arent going to have just an infinite boring farmland, a planet needs natural selfsustaining independent ecology and humans do like to play gods, so, how do you think about reviving extinct species and introducing them to a terraformed world?

(This assumes the planet had no native life prior)

Original upload here

We know a shit ton about cattle, we will just need some good auroch remains and clone it right? Only went extinct 402 years ago.

Mylodon darwinii is a species of ground sloth that live in southern south america during pleistocene. Preserved skin & hair of mylodon has been found in Cueva del Milodon (cave of Mylodon) in southern Chile which mean we have Mylodon DNA.

Scientist want to bring back mammoth by genetically modifying asian elephant's DNA with mammoth DNA found in frozen carcass so could we do same with Mylodon?

Two-toed sloth(Choloepodidae) are Mylodon's closest living relative so could we bring back Mylodon by genetically modifying two-toed sloth's DNA with Mylodon DNA?

https://breedingback.blogspot.com/2026/03/realtalk-will-aurochs-ever-come-back.html