The quagga is an animal that is a relative of the zebra that went extinct over 100 years ago. Now, a group of scientists outside of Cape Town are bring it back. Like zebras, the quagga has stripes, though these only appear on the front half of their bodies. Unlike the zebra, they are brown along the rear half of their body. These animals used to roam South Africa in vast herds, but European settlers fixed the beasts in their sights, killing them at a fast rate. By the 1880s the last known example had died. Now scientists have bred an animal that looks strikingly similar with the help of DNA and selective breeding.
This study is vey fascinating. If scientists can copy almost an exact DNA of an extinct species what can they do next?
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/25/africa/quagga-project-zebra-conservation-extinct-south-africa/?iid=ob_homepage_NewsAndBuzz_pool&iref=obinsite
That is very cool. The technological advances that this world is making is pretty astounding. I'm interested to see where this leads. It's very possible that this could arise some controversy sue to the touchy subject of DNA and selective breeding stuff.
ReplyDeleteWoah this is very interesting! Technology is advancing everyday.
ReplyDeleteIt is very neat how our technology has advanced so drastically in just the past few years, but the question is, are we taking some of these experiments too far?
ReplyDelete-Julianne Swaykus 6
Matthew Homsher 9th- This is really cool. If this is possible, maybe we can revive other extinct species. However, this means we're only a few steps away from real life Jurassic Park.
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