The dodo is the icon of species extinction caused by man. It went extinct on Mauritius island in the Indian Ocean in the mid 17th century. The large, flightless bird was literally hunted to eradication by humans for food. It was unafraid of man, having existed for millennia without him, giving rise to the undeserved reputation for stupidity, and the expression "deader than a dodo". Its survival was hampered by a low reproductive rate, typically laying just one egg on the ground where introduced rats or monkeys could easily eat it.
A tiny piece of dodo mitochondrial DNA was extracted by paleobiologist Beth Shapiro and her team at UC Santa Cruz in 2002. Analysis showed the dodo's closet living relative to be the Nicobar pigeon. [photo below] By 2022 the entire dodo genome was sequenced. This accomplishment allowed geneticists to ponder whether the extinct bird could be brought back to life. This almost magical feat might be accomplished using dodo genetic material being implanted into an egg of a closely related species, like the Nicobar pigeon. [photo below] While theoretically possible, it is technically difficult and there is no guarantee that a chimera would survive birth and rearing. Dolly the sheep is the famous first example of a successful cloning in mammals. But the same cloning pathway does not exist in avian species. Shapiro says there is no access to avian eggs at the same stage of development as mammal egg cells. So, Colossal is working on extracting primordial germ cells from birds that would be genetically engineered to create a dodo-sized pigeon that could successfully hatch a chimera. One advantage in working with egg-laying species is that all of the early development takes place inside an egg fairly rapidly compared to a woolly mammoth fetus developing in a surrogate womb for nearly two years.
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| Nicobar pigeon |
Creating a living creature is only the beginning of the problem. There are no adult dodos around to teach the new dodo how to behave like, well, a dodo. To compound the problem the environment is completely changed from what existed 300 years ago. Dodos lived in a pristine forest on an isolated Indian Ocean island with no large predators around. According to mariner accounts, there were thousands of them. Bringing an isolated, extinct bird into a modern world has significant ethical considerations. A habitat where re-created dodos could survive would have to be found, or more likely created. Shapiro admits to being a fan of the dodo; she even has a dodo tattoo. Nevertheless, she says that resurrecting extinct species is not a solution to the extinction crisis. She stated the problem succinctly, "Extinction is forever."