A lab pursuing de-extinction of the thylacine partners with a genetics company | Hacker News Reader

A lab pursuing de-extinction of the thylacine partners with a genetics company

unimelb.edu.au

81 pointsohjeez58 comments

> Australia’s only marsupial apex predator

This is only true if you just count recent history. It's the largest to survive the megafauna extinctions after humans arrived, and was out-competed by the non-marsupial dingo after that was introduced much later.

The "marsupial lion" thylacoleo carnifex (extinct ~35k years ago) was much bigger and more powerful, and "had the strongest bite of any known mammal, living or extinct". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thylacoleo_carnifex

Australia had tons of much larger herbivores too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_megafauna#Extinct_A...

It seems like the only “leap” is partnering with some other group. Which, yes, organizing is critical on large scale projects… but for those of us looking for a breakthrough, I guess we’ve been clickbaited.

The submitter altered the headline

Oh hey! I joined Colossal Biosciences 6 months ago from a post on the Who's Hiring thread and can say it's an incredible place to work, with some of the sharpest people I've ever met in both the biology and computer science space. This is just one of several awesome projects we're working on.

We're actively hiring frontend and backend engineers (React, Golang, GCP/multicloud). Drop a line: darren @ colossal.com

Is this likely to be the first de-extinct animal which we can bring back does anyone know?

The Pyrenean ibex was de-extincted for 7 minutes: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/news-buca...

There are a number of other candidates, though. I would guess either the thylacine, the woolly mammoth, or the passenger pigeon would be first to sustain an actual population, but I don't really follow the projects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-extinction#Current_candidat...

Colossal (the company mentioned in the article) is actively working on the mammoth as well --> https://colossal.com/mammoth/

Source: I work there.

Wow, I was just reading about Benjamin, the last known captive thylacine filmed in 1935

> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-footage-benjam...

There are periodic sightings of them. Although not with high enough confidence or documentation to say definitely, "They are still out there".

It's not plausible that such a large animal can have a self-sustaining population in the wild, and not be properly detected by the scientific community for 100 years.

https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/mammals/extinc...

Twelve animals thought to be extinct, some for hundreds, one for millions of years, before being rediscovered: https://www.treehugger.com/lazarus-species-extinct-animals-f...

Except that in general the "rediscovery" isn't something dramatic -- it's just a systematist in a lab looking at an animal known by many and realizing that it is the same species as fossilized/preserved specimens thought to be extinct rather than a common related species. That's quite different from finding a thylacine, an animal that couldn't be confused with anything else.

This seems like a very inaccurate summary of the examples given in that article.

Bermuda Petrel -- there are many nearly identical petrels, exactly the same to non-experts.

Chacoan Peccary -- There are many wild pigs.

Coelacanth -- Maybe the only real example of a "rediscovered species". But that's only because we know the oceans far less than we know the land.

Lord Howe Island Stick Insect -- You've probably seen a stick insect like this yourself even if it is genetically different.

La Palma Giant Lizard -- Same genus as Gallotia, a very common lizard on the Canary islands.

Takahe -- It's the same genus as the swamp hen. To an non-expert, they are the same.

Cuban Solenodon -- it looks like a common shrew to non-experts.

New Caledonian Crested Gecko -- It's a geko.

New Holland Mouse -- it's a mouse (not a marsupial, despite being native to Australia).

Giant Palouse Earthworm -- It's an earthworm, although larger than normal.

Large-Billed Reed-Warbler -- same genus as many other warblers, exactly the same to non-experts who don't measure the bill.

Laotian Rock Rat -- It actually is of a unique genus, so more interesting than most of these examples, but still, it's a rodent not that different to the average person than other rodents.

One might be greatly overestimating the number of scientist per hectare.

Otoh, there is a huge reward for capturing a living thylacine.

In 1910 someone tried to introduce moose into a remote corner of New Zealand [1]. They haven't been seen since 1952, but seem to still be out there, as hair was found in 2002. If things as big as moose can hide a self-sustaining population in a small corner of New Zealand, thylacines could plausibly hide in Australia or Tasmania.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose#New_Zealand

Scientists haven't managed to find a sasquatch yet, and those are even bigger.

It is very unlikely -- however have you been to Tasmania?

Some parts are well-nigh impenetrable due to thick bush.

Not exciting enough for the cryptozoologists to track

If they are successful, how do they navigate challenges related to inbreeding given what is likely to be a very small population of adult animals to work with?

Since the thylacine has been extinct for less than a century, they appear to be hoping that there's enough genetic diversity in modern preserved samples to eventually produce a diverse population. Even with a highly limited population, if you strictly control which pairs breed and aggressively pair the ones that are least related, you only need an initial population of like 16 or something to eventually reach a state where you have a large breeding population where most individuals don't share grandparents, at which point you can let nature take over.

Random mutagenesis eg radiation could be used to introduce diversity.

Wonder if they are successful if they just go extinct again. Will they know how to hunt and reproduce? Interesting test of nature vs nurture.

The claim from the researchers is that there has been a lot of success in reintroducing human-raised animals into the wild, and that for mammals, most hunting/etc behavior is indeed instinctive.

An interesting test of some of the claims about epigenetics...

Why?

My guess: if non-genetic heritable elements -- epigenetics (such as modifications to DNA) -- are necessary for proper development, then the DNA sequence alone will not be enough to develop thylacines. (There are caveats, notably that some modifications can be inferred). However, the scientists will also be experimenting with gestation and creating embryos from modified cells, so whether epigenetics specifically is a limiting factor will be hard to tell.

Yes, that was basically my point. There has also been some fairly fevered speculation about epigenetics being responsible for some types of instinct - even "cross-generational memories" and the like.

This is a really great point. I want very much their effort to succeed, but I suspect epigenetic is so important for higher organisms that the chances of this working are rather low.

Worst case you provide 90% of their food and decrease it a little bit for each generation until they’ve learned how to hunt.

My family dog growing up was taught to hunt song birds by their mother. I don't think I've seen something so cute as a mother retriever crouch walking through the brush with 8 little pups in tow.

See "Born Free".

I wonder if a suitable habitat exists to re-introduce them too.

I worked with the CEO at 2 of his other start ups... Ben Lamm is a joke. Maybe some of the other talent working there knows what's up but I do not have high hopes for this working out.

I wonder, have they asked the people of Tasmania if they want it back? It's Jurassic Park writ small.

De-extinction doesn't necessarily mean they will release animals back into the wild. Presumably a portion of animal behaviour is learned and passed down from the previous generation. Animals produced by de-extinction will be lacking these behaviours and perhaps best off in captivity.

yes, this is something most ppl get wrong.

It's too bad it would be highly unethical to run experiments with humans in tabula rasa environments. It would be really neat to see what different social behaviors emerge.

If they raise them in an environment where they have to hunt/forage for food, I don't see it being a big problem. You'd want to establish a population in a sanctuary for several generations before attempting it of course. Dogs and cats both can become feral pretty easily, and these occupied a similar niche despite being so distantly related.

This is different since they were exterminated by humans, not by natural processes. It could be argued we have the moral obligation to bring them back if able.

that taxidermy job should be redone. the head/face looks nothing like the real thing. it looks comical, like a bad sock puppet.

https://earthlymission.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/tasman...

https://www.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0004/4255339/...

The photos are from different angles, it’s hard to say whether they look that much different. Of course the muzzle is going to appear shorter in a front view and it’s hard to tell what the mouth line would be from the first photo.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Sock-pup...

It’s amazing what an incredibly prescient work of science fiction Jurassic Park (the novel) really was. Before CRISPR, before Dolly, before the Human Genome, Crichton called it.

Your comment supposes that (1) not a lot of people were talking about the idea back then and (2) that we have made significant progress in cloning extinct animals

I think a lot of people were talking about the idea back then and also we've had very little progress since then (despite flowery "news" articles like OP)

The 1982 paper that inspired Crichton to think about ancient insects in amber:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.215.4537.1241

One can’t help but wonder how much the movie influenced the work

It's an idea that's been around a long time. Even the specific idea of a dinosaur park with cloned dinosaurs is not novel to the novel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cursed_Earth_(Judge_Dredd_...

This is fucking awesome, thanks.

Any thoughts on mitochondria? They are basically sub-organisms with their own DNA. Another organism’s mitochondria is going to be different.

"He was watching one of Lev’s two thylacine analogs through the kitchen window.…Now it turned, in its uncanine fashion, its vertically striped flank quite heraldic, and seemed to stare at him. The regard of a mammalian predator neither canid nor felid was a peculiar thing."

William Gibson, The Peripheral (2014).

Another thing William Gibson accurately predicted?

“We can now take the giant leaps..." says Professor Pask of the Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research (TIGRR) Lab.

Which is a lot more accurate than the article headline, which says that they _have already_ taken a 'giant leap'. I expect such exaggeration and overstatement from mainstream news sources; I suppose I should not be surprised to see it coming from a university website.

At least they didn’t say quantum leap…

Or exponential leap.

or Ti Kwan Leep

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