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A TEAM OF scientists from Harvard has said they might soon be able to create an elephant-woolly mammoth hybrid by combining their DNA with the gene-editing technology Crispr.
At the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston this week, the team introduced their idea for a ”an elephant with a number of mammoth traits”, which they believe could become a reality in the next two years.
Scientists have wanted to bring back woolly mammoths for a long time. The reason they went extinct in the first place is a subject of much debate — nobody really knows if we were to blame or not. Either way, they’re a firm favourite for de-extinction and researchers now believe they could be roaming around a few years from now.
This “mammophant” would have features of a mammoth such as long, shaggy hair and adaptations to the cold like subcutaneous fat and specially adapted blood.
The project started in 2015, and since then the team has been able to add more and more edits into elephant DNA – from 15 to 45.
“We’re working on ways to evaluate the impact of all these edits and basically trying to establish embryogenesis in the lab,” leader of the research team Professor George Church told The Guardian.
While reintroducing mammoths is a passion project for some, and there’s an argument it could help preserve the endangered Asian elephant in a hybrid form, others aren’t so sure.
Mark Carnall, the Life Collections Manager at Oxford University Museum of Natural History, tweeted his concerns:
Many, including Carnall, think the ethical and ecological implications of bringing back major species have not been fully thought through.
For example, mammoths were social animals like elephants, but there’s no way of knowing how a herd of elephants would welcome a mammophant.
There’s also the possibility they could destroy native species and disrupt the ecosystem in ways that haven’t been considered.
The reasons behind bringing them back are shaky too, considering mammoths haven’t been around on Earth for 4,500 years after being killed off by climate change or hunting.
It’s a massive decision whether an animal will be an asset to the environment or if it being reintroduced is just a means of clearing our conscience.
But this hasn’t deterred the Harvard team which hopes to eventually grow the hybrid embryo within an artificial womb.
The de-extinction of these animals is more possible than ever before thanks to sophisticated gene editing techniques like Crispr. It’s also made easier by the fact mammoth DNA has been unusually well preserved because specimens have been frozen in Siberian ice for thousands of years.
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It’s not going to be a woolly mammoth it’s going to be a fatter Asian elephant with hair
Big boned elephants I think is the politically correct term for them.
Yea, it’s gonna be an “Elemoth” not a “Mammophant”
Wonder if it’d sound like Ray Ramone?
Hey hey be a little more sensitive there, this guy comes out of a 10,000 year hibernation and you already call it a ‘fat asian elephant’…just because it wasn’t so pc back then doesn’t give you a licence to slag it like that ;)
Elephanverine perhaps?
Elifiknow!
Why not focus on the prevention of animals becoming extinct?!
That’s like the argument put up everytime there is money put into Space Travel/Research or History or Heritage…the answer is the same, you can plough every penny into the save the animals from extinction campaign and it still won’t be enough, it’s an impossible task, but we still have to progress in other areas also or we’d stop progressing as a People and Planet.
Had its time ….don’t mess with mother nature
I was at Knowth a few years ago and the guide mentioned that when the carvings on the stone were made Wooly Mammoths were still roaming parts of the world. Gave it a nice sense of place.
Great news something else to kill.
Jurassic Park not far away so!
Extinction is a natural part of evolution, bringing extinct animals “back to life” may have far reaching consequences.
Surely de-extinction can also be part of this vision of nature you have? After all, they can always go extinct again later.. And in the meantime, we can benefit from the mammoth fur autumn/winter fashion.
After bringing animals back to life – it may be possible to do the same for humans. Maybe have Stalin and Hitler on the Late Late Show…
Tubridy would still manage to balls that interview up
A wholly mammoth task to undertake
Exclusive Chinese restaurants will have a field day!
Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
At least start with a dodo or somethig first
@Guill Ire: how could they do that? Do you understand any of this?
Or passenger pigeons, they were supposed to be delicious.
@jason, I’ve seen Jurassic park three times so i think i have a good grasp of the basics.
@Guill Ire: really? So you’re aware that it can only work if we have preserved DNA. I assume you have some Dodo DNA lying around?
Mammoth task-bring back Tyrasoris Rex instead.
tyrannosaurus*
Should of just gone with the “T”-Rex there Charliethekid.
Haha *Benny
Ok Ted-didn’t get time to check the dictionary.
When did you ever hear it be called a Tyrasoris Rex?
@ Observer-when I was drunk-ok ok “T” REX “T”REX.
Why?
Why not
Yum yum
Unfortunately history teaches us that if science discovers it can be done then it will be done. No doubt somewhere deep in the Pentagon there is already a feasibility study working on weaponising it.
Why?
What could possible go wrong? Let’s bring back the tyrannosaurus whilst we’re t it too.
Doas that mean John Gormley will be running in the next general election?
have your say