The woolly mammoth lived thousands of years ago during the Pliocene age, and went extinct about 3,000 years ago. This majestic animal looks similar to the modern elephant and was about the same size as today’s African elephants.
Many scientists in the past have been excited about the thought of bringing back one of these massive beasts that have inspired them over the years, but didn’t have a viable method of doing so.
A lot is already known about woolly mammoths because many frozen ones have been discovered over the years that yielded actual tissue, hairs, bones, and even their stomach contents. Now, scientists are hoping to actually bring back this extinct animal by manipulating the cells of modern elephants through inserting woolly mammoth DNA into the modern elephant eggs and trying to clone a mammoth.
In the past, this wasn’t possible because of the wholly mammoth physical differences, such as its hair, being fatter and having larger ears. However, thanks to a new method, a scientist at Harvard University has come up with a way to edit a modern elephant’s genes and replace them with the mammoth genes. The transformed egg would have to be implanted in a modern female elephant and hope that it formed into a woolly mammoth baby.
It has been possible to obtain mammoth cells that are well preserved to use in the experiments because the animal’s remains were found deep in the permafrost of the Arctic region, which is able to preserve them just like a home freezer. This is where the scientist teams working on the experiments to possibly clone and bring back the mammoths got the cells to use in these tests.
The tests have given the groups of scientists living cells that have the characteristics of mammoth cells, which make them one step closer to being able to do future experimentation to possibly create and bring back extinct animals like a wooly mammoth.
However, some people are against the idea of bringing back extinct animals such as the wooly mammoth due to ethical reasons. For instance, today’s modern elephants are also facing possible extinction due to things like loss of habitat and poachers wanting to kill them for their ivory tusks, etc. This type of experiment could risk the life or health of a modern elephant, and thus would be unethical on several levels.
In addition, according to some thinkers, it could leave humanity with the thought that if an animal went extinct in the future, all that would have to be done is to find a way to manipulate the DNA and genes and clone it, so that extinction is okay.
The bottom line is that scientists are getting closer to having the ability to clone extinct animals such as the wooly mammoth thanks to these types of experiments. The new technique of being able to manipulate elephant genes and DNA and insert wooly mammoth DNA and genes is giving some scientists hope that this majestic elephant like creature could someday walk the earth once again.
