An international team of scientists is hoping to recreate the great auk, a marine bird species which has been extinct for nearly 200 years. The last great auk couple is believed to have been killed in Iceland in 1844.
According to the Telegraph, the team of scientists has discussed the idea of recreating the birds and gradually restoring it to its old breeding grounds in the North Atlantic.
To recreate an extinct bird, the team needs to extract great auk DNA from fossils or preserved organs and then use digital data to sequence the bird’s entire genome. The important genes would then be edited into the cells of the razorbill, a seabird in the genus Alca of the family Alcidae and the closest living relative of the great auk. Fertilised embryos would then be implanted into a goose or another bird species big enough to lay a great auk egg.
The great auk was a flightless bird of the alcid family. It usually bred on rocky, isolated islands and spent the rest of the year foraging in the North Atlantic. The last colony of great auks was found on Geirfuglasker (Great Auk Skerry) off the south-west coast of Iceland. The rough surf around the island made it inaccessible to humans and therefore, one of the last refuges for the great auk. The island submerged in an 1830 volcanic eruption which forced the birds to move their breeding grounds to the nearby Eldey island, located off the coast of Reykjanes peninsula.
The great auk colony on Eldey was discovered in 1835 and since the skins of the auk were extremely sought after people began to hunt the bird. The last great auk pair, found incubating an egg, was killed on Eldey on 3 July 1844.
An international team of scientists is hoping to recreate the great auk, a marine bird species which has been extinct for nearly 200 years. The last great auk couple is believed to have been killed in Iceland in 1844.
According to the Telegraph, the team of scientists has discussed the idea of recreating the birds and gradually restoring it to its old breeding grounds in the North Atlantic.
To recreate an extinct bird, the team needs to extract great auk DNA from fossils or preserved organs and then use digital data to sequence the bird’s entire genome. The important genes would then be edited into the cells of the razorbill, a seabird in the genus Alca of the family Alcidae and the closest living relative of the great auk. Fertilised embryos would then be implanted into a goose or another bird species big enough to lay a great auk egg.
The great auk was a flightless bird of the alcid family. It usually bred on rocky, isolated islands and spent the rest of the year foraging in the North Atlantic. The last colony of great auks was found on Geirfuglasker (Great Auk Skerry) off the south-west coast of Iceland. The rough surf around the island made it inaccessible to humans and therefore, one of the last refuges for the great auk. The island submerged in an 1830 volcanic eruption which forced the birds to move their breeding grounds to the nearby Eldey island, located off the coast of Reykjanes peninsula.
The great auk colony on Eldey was discovered in 1835 and since the skins of the auk were extremely sought after people began to hunt the bird. The last great auk pair, found incubating an egg, was killed on Eldey on 3 July 1844.
