Extinct Animal May Get Second Chance

Scientists seek to clone Tasmanian tiger

Cloning, the ability to create an identical copy of a living thing, is back in the headlines. Scottish scientists managed to pull it off in 1997 when they cloned Dolly the sheep. Now there's talk of bringing back to life an animal that's been extinct for 64 years! A team of Australian biologists believes they can bring back the Tasmanian tiger using the genetic code, or DNA, of a tiger pup that has been preserved in alcohol since 1866.

DNA Message in a Bottle

There are other extinct-animal cloning projects going on in the world. You may remember the movie "Jurassic Park," which focused on the cloning of dinosaurs. But the Tasmanian tiger project is getting all the attention right now because it's the first to work with high quality DNA. To clone something, scientists copy its DNA, so the "readability" of the DNA is extremely important for success. Scientists have been able to study the DNA of the 134-year-old tiger pup specimen and are confident that they can make a successful clone.

More Kangaroo than Cat

The Tasmanian tiger (in the picture a Tasmanian tiger in 1920) wasn't actually a tiger at all. It belonged to the marsupial family. The female carried its young in a pouch. Its reputation for being fierce and flesh-eating, in addition to the dark stripes on its back, probably explain how it came to be known as a tiger.

It is believed these "tigers" were once common throughout Australia. But when European settlers arrived there in the late 1700's, they found the animals only on the island of Tasmania, south of Australia. The settlers hunted the tiger aggressively because they believed it was killing their livestock. The last known Tasmanian tiger - or thylacine -- died in captivity, or confinement, in 1936. Now there's hope of seeing one again. But don't expect this to happen overnight. The scientists say it could take another 15 years to clone this tiger.

By Carolyn R. Buchanan