Bringing Back Mammoths (was Dinosaur Mating Displays)

[Mark Hallett <marksabercat@yahoo.com>]

Mary, Thanks for providing the link to this. Getting back to the recently 
discussed subject of mammoth genomes and the possibility of re-creating one, 
what's your (and the List's) take on the ethicality of bringing this, or any 
prehistoric species back? I agree with the commentator who observed that it 
would be rather cruel to clone just one individual from a highly social, 
intelligent animal, so we're talking about multiple effort with several 
individuals. That Russian chap seems well on his way to recreating a 
steppe-tundra environment, so a balanced food supply isn't out of the question. 
I think a main issue is that, in addition to their absolute nutritional 
requirements, the mammoths' extinction took away a extraordinarily complex body 
of learned behavior similar to that of living proboscideans: who knows to what 
extent mammoth behaviors differed from those of their living relatives, and 
how, if at all, would any relearned survival behavior be at all
 similar to the actual ones? This is the huge question, largely undiscussed, 
that accompanies the idea of any reconstituted species, other than smaller, 
largely instinct-driven forms.  --Mark     


--- On Wed, 11/26/08, MKIRKALDY@aol.com <MKIRKALDY@aol.com> wrote:

> From: MKIRKALDY@aol.com <MKIRKALDY@aol.com>
> Subject: Re: Dinosaur Mating Displays
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2008, 4:03 AM
> Sorry, make  that:
> http://www.ucpress.edu/image/covers/isbn13/9780520254084.jpg
> 
> Mary
> --
>  
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