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Re-creating dinosaurs?


Sofia Alexandra

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Take a look at this.

The Aurochs and the Tarpan have been (sort of) "re-created" by selective breeding, and now I'm wondering: Can the same thing be done with dinosaurs?

Once, when I was eating a chicken wing, I saw that it had a small "thumb", complete with a li'l claw, and though I knew before that birds are the decendants of dinosaurs it was still cool to see that. Later I learned that there's a kind of bird, the Hoatzin, whose chicks has got "fingers" that are so well developed that they can use them to climb away from predators. The fingers becomes useless as the bird grows up, but still, they've got 'em.

Now, here's my thought: You take the chickens* that's got the best developed thumbs, and you start a breeding programme that allows the most "dinosaurian" chickens to meet and, well, interact, in a supervised manner.

What would the result look like after some generations? Still like bog-standard chickens? What do you think?

*Why chickens, why not Hoatzins, you might wonder? Well, chickens are cheaper, and far easier to come by. Simple as that.

Edited by Sofia Alexandra
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(KFD)Kentucky Fried Dinosaurs

It will be the next big thing. :D

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Making "fake" though biologically similar dinosaur as you suggest would be far easier than making a "real" one from dino dna. We would not learn anything about real dinos from such a freak, but it could undoubtedly start a new pet craze.

Another impressive prehistoric reptile that could probably be possible to create in the near future is the real, gigantic monitor lizard from the dna of the over 20 foot long ones that inhabited australia around 15,000 years ago. Their bones have not mineralized and DNA could possibly be extracted, and with their close relatives the komodo dragons good captive breeders, their eggs could be used.

Edited by draconic chronicler
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(KFD)Kentucky Fried Dinosaurs

It will be the next big thing.

Not as big a Kentucky Fried Chocobo!!

And moogle nuggets! :devil:

The only way you could create "real" dinosaurs is if you have a relatively close modern animal, like dc said with the monitor lizards. You can't make a Tyranosaurus rex from an alligator. :huh:

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I'll be KFD's biggest customer! Or dinosaurs may become the new wave of trading! I'll give you 2 raptors for 1 pterodactyl!

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The only way you could create "real" dinosaurs is if you have a relatively close modern animal, like dc said with the monitor lizards. You can't make a Tyranosaurus rex from an alligator.

Who said anything about allogators? I know they ain't no dino relatives even though they're just as old!

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The new pet craze? Could I get on a waiting list? Maybe my next-door neighbor will stay away from me if I had one of those. :P

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Gators and dinos are closer related than a lot of people think. they are both Archosaurs and share much in common. Dinoaur sexes have been determined by similar bone structures in alligators. You could not make a "genetic" T Rex from crocodilians, but we may soon have the technology to make a "freak" that looks something like a T-rex from alligators. In fact, nature has already done it once. After the diosaurs died out, a species of crocodile "evolved" to fill the niche of a theropod dinosaur, developing large hind legs, ran like bipedally and looked a lot like the dino Baryonyx. It was succesful for millions of years, but eventually died out when better adapted predatory mammals evolved to out compete them.

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Gators and dinos are closer related than a lot of people think. they are both Archosaurs and share much in common. Dinoaur sexes have been determined by similar bone structures in alligators. You could not make a "genetic" T Rex from crocodilians, but we may soon have the technology to make a "freak" that looks something like a T-rex from alligators. In fact, nature has already done it once. After the diosaurs died out, a species of crocodile "evolved" to fill the niche of a theropod dinosaur, developing large hind legs, ran like bipedally and looked a lot like the dino Baryonyx. It was succesful for millions of years, but eventually died out when better adapted predatory mammals evolved to out compete them.

You must remember though that alligators and crocodiles co-existed with dinosaurs, and didn't develop from them.

Birds on the other are the result of some dinosaurs surviving and evolving to cope with the changing world after the event which killed the vast majority of them.

So birds might actually include some "junk DNA" containing info for their past dino-features.

I think that tweaking with avian dna is our best chance to re-create dinosaurs, as has been suggested in the beginning of this thread.

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Ericl,

I don't think you don't understand what I am getting out. A kind of crocodilian evolved into a "fake" theropod dinosaur to fill that niche when dinos went extinct. Therefore it would probably be possible to artificially do this again, which is a far easier thing to do than finding viable dino dna and cloning a real dinosaur.

I never said you could make a real T-Rex with Crocodilian dna, even though they are both Archosaurs.

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You must remember though that alligators and crocodiles co-existed with dinosaurs, and didn't develop from them.

Birds on the other are the result of some dinosaurs surviving and evolving to cope with the changing world after the event which killed the vast majority of them.

So birds might actually include some "junk DNA" containing info for their past dino-features.

I think that tweaking with avian dna is our best chance to re-create dinosaurs, as has been suggested in the beginning of this thread.

Thank you, that's what I was thinking! :tu:

I'm not saying it'd be possible to re-create a specific kind of dinosaur, such as a T-Rex, but at least some kind of dinosaur-like chicken. The you wouldn't have to go trhough all the fuzz about cloning and finding suitable surrogate mothers, 'cos it'd be a process that'd take many generations of, hopefully, increasingly dinosaurian chickens.

But I'm in doubt if the final result would be suitable as a pet though, as I'm thinking it's possible they turn out quite aggressive...

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