WEBVTT - From the Vault: Twilight of the Moa 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:07.640 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:10.760 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:12.920 Time to go into the vault for a classic episode 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:17.439 of the show. This originally aired on March. It's part 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:21.560 two of our series about the Moa. That's right. The 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:25.800 first one was more about the Wingless Wonders themselves themselves, 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:28.280 and this is more about, you know, the fall of 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.040 the Moa, the twilight of the Moa, their extinction and 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.320 what we know about how we can you know, put together, uh, 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.360 their final days, where they went, and we'll even touch 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:45.320 on the question of what if we could bring them back. Hi, everybody, 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:47.880 it's Seth the producer of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:48.280 --> 0:00:51.800 I'm here in March to just pop on a quick 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:55.560 note into this episode saying, Hey, it's March, and you 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.320 know what that means. We're all recording from our own homes, 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.800 all separate and all social distancing, so that means the 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.160 sound quality of this one is a little strange. But 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.119 just to let you know, each time we've been doing 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.040 these home recordings, they've been getting better and better and better. 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:12.920 So I can guarantee you that next one is going 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:14.679 to sound a little better than this and the next one, 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:16.240 and after that's going to sound a little bit better 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:19.120 than that one, etcetera, etcetera. So just so you know, 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:21.400 this is all temporary and we'll get back to our 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:24.680 regular episodes as soon as we can sound quality wise. 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:30.520 Thank you very much, and enjoy the show. Welcome to 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:40.240 Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of My Heart Radio. Hey, 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:42.360 welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:45.679 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back. We're 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.800 still social distancing now. There must have been a weird 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.880 back and forth year because Thursday of last week's episode 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:56.120 we were broadcasting from our closet and our laundry room, right, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.760 but then Tuesday of this week's episode. I think that 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:02.360 was recorded in the studio before we came home for 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.880 the Great Retreat, that's right. And also we record our 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:09.639 vault episode intros about a month out, so people might 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.880 have noticed that as well. But this episode, part two 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.040 of our Look at the Moa, Twilight of the MOA 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.799 we're calling it. This episode is recorded from our respective 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.680 closets in our homes. You're actually in a closet now, 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:27.120 as opposed to your your laundry roomness. That correct, that's true. 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.000 I decided to become a monster in the closet. Uh, 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.240 And I've got so I've got the same talisman's that 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.239 I had last time in order to bring me good 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:38.760 luck and watch over me while making this recording. I've 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:40.720 got tom Atkins from Night of the Creeps. I've got 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:43.320 my thor Christ. But this time I also brought in 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:47.160 an extremely tasteful novelty mug that my wife found an 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:50.360 East Tennessee thrift store. Which is great because I cannot 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.160 bring this mug to the office. I am sure I 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:55.120 haven't get in trouble for that. Yeah, the home office 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.680 brings with it certain advantages, doesn't it? For For me? 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:00.680 I looked around the house. I would have loved to 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:02.760 have had a toy of a moa, like a little 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:07.200 plastic like Schleck moa, but sadly we do not have one, 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:09.720 and it would be irresponsible for me to even try 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:11.840 and mail order one at the moment. So you have 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:14.120 a plastic Shrek, no I have. I do have a 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:18.120 plastic terror birds. So it's not accurate, but it's it 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.800 is still an extinct flightless bird. Uh. So I'm gonna 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.120 set it right here next to my microphone and it 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:26.880 will it will serve as my mascot. Well mayor pocket 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.600 sized titles watch over us. So, so where do we 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.440 leave off last time? All right? So in our last episode, 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:34.440 and if you didn't listen to it, do go back 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:36.760 and listen to that episode before this one. In it, 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.360 we discussed the evolution of flightless birds and the rise 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.800 of the moa, nine species of large flightless birds that 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.600 evolved as the dominant vertebrates on the isolated islands of 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:51.880 what he's currently known as New Zealand. But the rule 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.760 of the moa did not last forever because Homo sapiens arrived, 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.880 and this episode will deal with the subsequent extinction of 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.840 the moa because you know what they say, more humans 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:08.440 moa problems. I wondered how you were going to work 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:10.200 that in, saying, you know, I had to get to 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:14.440 it eventually. Yeah, yeah, that's true for I'd say every 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.200 organism except us, right, except maybe like Hathogen's that that 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.640 prey upon us. Right, Yeah, it's certainly when we're dealing 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:27.120 with with megafauna um creatures of that nature, there's this 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.719 is a tale of doom whenever humans enter the equation, 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:32.960 and we'll we'll point out some other examples of that 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.400 as we'd move along. No, wait a minute, I'm thinking 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:37.680 of some more exceptions. We've got rats too. I mean 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.640 rats were great for them, and rats will come up. Yeah, 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:44.160 so so yeah, a few exceptions there. But you don't 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:46.640 want to be a moa when humans show up. Right, 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.520 So the rule of the moa was lengthy. They evolved 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:54.000 into the into these dominant positions in New Zealand, but 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.480 as we discussed on the show before, it can be 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.640 precarious at the top, certainly for apex predators, but also 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:06.720 from massive dominant herbivores, especially when something changes. Oh yeah, 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.279 we also talked about this in our episode. I believe 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:13.279 it was on the Leviattan or the Leviathan genus of 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.640 like the the ancient predatory sperm whale. That's right, yes, 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:18.920 where it's easy to look at a creature like that, 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:21.919 or a creature like hosts eagle, which we discussed in 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:24.480 the last episode, to look at these creatures and think, well, 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.560 that's there's no taking that down. That's that's that's a 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.760 dominant organism. But it is, uh, you know, it is 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:34.200 the ruler. But it is it is it's thrown rest 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:38.000 upon a precarious pyramid of bones. Yeah, heavy lies the 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:42.160 crown exactly. So Yeah, when something changes, it can topple 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:46.640 everything over. And in the thirteenth century, see I've seen 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.599 twelve a d c. As a potential date, a major 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.039 change arrived on the shores of New Zealand. And that 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.039 change came in the form of Homo sapiens. Uh. The 0:05:55.160 --> 0:06:00.640 long world changing wave of human migration had only made 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.440 its way to you know, near the bottom of the world, 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.039 to this nation of the birds, and this would have 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.800 been what would come to be known as the Mallory. Uh. 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.920 These were uh, these settlers were a Polynesian people who 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:17.760 arrived in several waves uh in what is now New Zealand. 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.279 This is one of the later regions of planet Earth 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:25.760 to be settled by humans. Absolutely like these were some 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:30.640 of the last in true pioneers heading into parts of 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:34.160 the world, not not only parts of the world that 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:36.640 they had not been to before, but where no human 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:41.560 had gone before. Um. You know, the European colonists and 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:45.960 explorers would only come in the wake of these true pioneers. Now, 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.760 Polynesian culture itself is endlessly fascinating, and I'd love to 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:52.120 come back and deal with some of the related topics 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:56.800 on the show, such as their amazing navigational abilities or 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:01.240 the use of aquaculture in in the Lion Islands. But 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:05.000 essentially we're talking about a long curving leg of human 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:09.400 expansion that extends from China through the Philippines, New Guinea, 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:14.720 the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tahiti, uh Hawaii, Eastern Island, and 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:18.679 other islands in this broad stretch of the ocean. Again, 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.760 they were the Polynesians were the last true pioneers of 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:25.360 human expansion, and Polynesian expansion took place over the course 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:28.520 of thousands of years as well, and the culture evolved 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:30.520 along the way it takes on ends up taking on 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:34.200 different forms in the locations where they land, often due 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:38.080 to resulting isolation, uh, you know, because these are in 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:41.760 many cases very far flung islands and and and sometimes 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:46.239 we're talking about, you know, centuries and centuries between people 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.360 making it to one island versus another. So New Zealand 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.560 was discovered and colonized very late in human expansion, and 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:58.800 when the archaic Mallory arrived, they encountered the Moa Following 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:02.080 this encounter, the nine species of moa would scarcely last 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:06.880 more than another century, and they were extinct by fourteen five. 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:10.000 So let's get into what we're mainly going to discuss 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:14.720 in this episode. This this collision between Homo sapiens and moa, 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:16.880 And probably the best place to start there is by 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:20.280 talking about just the word moa. Where does it come from? 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.800 I was reading in Prodigious Birds, MOA's and Moa Hunting 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:27.679 in New Zealand by Athol Anderson, and the author shares 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.920 that the earliest recorded use of the word moa comes 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:37.320 via Cornish missionary William Colenso who in eighty eight heard 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:41.000 that some mallory described the moa as a large bird, 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.680 others as a large bird with a face like that 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:48.000 of a man, lived in a mountain cavern that was 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:52.840 guarded by two giant lizards. This in other tales described 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:58.840 the residents of Mount uh Taranaki or Mount Egmont's described 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.200 the very strange residents that live there, often taking the 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:06.480 form of abnormal birds or lizards, sometimes with human qualities. 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.720 And this really lines up with what we've talked about 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:13.240 on the show before about sacred mountains and holy mountains 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:18.439 and the various myths that people accumulate regarding the sorts 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:20.240 of things you would find there, in the sorts of 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:25.680 creatures that would populate those uh, those mysterious cliffs up there. Yeah, 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:27.280 there are a couple of ways of looking at that. 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.360 In our episode on the Sacred Mountains, I guess we 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:32.400 did two of those episodes. I mean, one thing is 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:34.960 we talked about the idea that if you get really 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:37.959 really high up there, there's some evidence that people sometimes start, 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:42.360 you know, experiencing psychosis or hallucinations. Um, so, like that 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.679 could be a source of some supernatural beliefs in some cases. 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:49.200 But but I'd say probably the more prevalent issue is 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.200 just that the top of the mountain is inaccessible, so 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.560 it is naturally a place to put your mythical creatures 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:57.480 at home in You know that that is where they 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:00.440 hide absolutely now I know it. As some people were 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.319 probably wondering, here is eighty eight. That sounds kind of 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.640 late for the earliest recorded use of the word moa. Yeah, 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.600 so how long would the species have been extinct before 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.440 the word appears in writing? Yeah? Yeah, it's uh, it 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:18.800 seems a little confusing at first, right, because first contact 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:24.040 between Europeans and Maori occurred December eighteen, sixteen forty two, 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:29.880 with Able Tasman's Dutch East India Company expedition. Now specifically, 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:34.800 Europeans had been asking the Mallory about other giant creatures 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:38.600 recorded in their traditions since the seventeen seventies. In the 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:42.640 near two centuries after, there was certainly communication and exchange 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.840 between Europeans and Mallory, in addition to, of course colonial subjucation. 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:50.960 Uh Anderson discusses this uh in his book, and it 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.520 points out that earlier references to the moa might either 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:59.240 have not been recognized or not associated with the term 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.360 moa self, so you know, descriptions of the animal might 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.959 not have been immediately tied with moa. For instance, there 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:09.280 were accounts of spirits covered in hair in the form 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:12.600 of birds, and there was talk of how a giant 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:16.680 kiwi lived in the mountains. Uh and will again remind 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:19.319 everyone that the kiwi and the moa are not actually 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:23.679 all that related. But this UH, this sort of discovery 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.400 would have stemmed from Earth, from general European interests in 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.200 the extent kiwi, so you know, they might have been 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.240 asking about the kiwi and they would have been heard 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.960 about myths of giant birds that are in some way 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.559 like a kiwi. That is interesting, Yeah, the idea that 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:44.200 the concept could persist over time, especially if you have 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:48.120 like something that's morphologically very similar but just like much 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:51.160 smaller to refer to. Right. And in all of this, 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:55.440 again we're just we're discussing like European knowledge all of 0:11:55.440 --> 0:12:00.280 the Moa, which is ultimately tied to European knowledge edge 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:04.080 and understanding of the Mallory, which of course is is 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.840 a strained relationship, you know, to say the least, because 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.240 again you're talking about the the indigenous people, the Maori, 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:13.679 and you're talking about the the colonial power that then 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.040 arrives on their shore in the form of the Europeans. 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:19.320 Anderson also points out that a major factor might be 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:24.040 that the Mallory conceptionalize the moa as not being true 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:27.520 birds but is just being is being bird like, which 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.040 Nights had a little confusing. But then I think back 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.800 to just some of the weird things about the moa, 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:35.360 you know, like they had the thing that the fact 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:38.960 that they had no wings, not even vestigial wings. They 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.280 were just two limbed organisms. Um, you can see why 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:47.240 they might defy easy categorization. Likewise, they're just the size 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:50.040 of the larger species. Well, sure, I mean when we 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.240 use the term bird now, I think like you and 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.200 I are going to be referring to an evolutionary clade, 0:12:55.960 --> 0:13:00.199 uh that is defined by evolutionary relationships. But if you're 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.760 just categorizing animals that you see in the world, what 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:07.000 are the bases on which you form your categories? Like 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.360 a bird might well be understood as something that flies. 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:12.560 So if there's something that, look, this is kind of 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:14.199 like a bird, and that it has a beak and 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:16.560 all that, but it doesn't fly, it doesn't meet your 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:20.800 necessary criteria for what makes something a bird exactly. Yeah, 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.160 and so the bones of the moa were apparently not 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.160 described by the Mallory as bird bones, but they were 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.920 described as moa bones. So here's the here's a quote 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.960 from from Anderson on all of this quote, it is 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.320 very difficult to document this point, but the separation of 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:41.680 dangerous mythological moa from large birds used as food and 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:45.440 easily hunted to extinction in Pollock's description, and the lack 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:49.360 of any comparable prosaic tradition about MOA's in most of 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:53.719 the moa stories collected by missionaries seem suggestive. Certainly, it 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:57.040 was the very lack of an unequivocal association between the 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.880 term moa and any straightforward account of large birds hunted 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:04.480 and eaten by maories which formed the main flaw exploited 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.040 throughout the long debate about what, if anything malories had 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:12.160 known about the dinner riforms. Oh, and the dinner if 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.480 the forms that refers to the group to which the 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:20.000 moa belong, right, Yes, so, well, we'll ponder this dangerous 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.320 versus easy to drive to extinction question as we perceive, 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.000 because I'm not entirely convinced this species can't be both 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.440 of these things. You know, certainly when humans and the 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:33.280 humans in question have tools, tactics, and invasive species on 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:38.120 their side. Oh sure. I mean some of the most 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.520 dangerous creatures in a one on one context are also 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:43.760 some of the easiest to drive extinct. I mean, if 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:46.440 you just wanted to drive an animal extinct, what would 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:49.720 be like the easiest ones to do? Probably like large carnivores, 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:52.280 because there's already so few of them. Of course, the 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:54.880 moa were not carnivores like this, But yeah, of course, 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.480 like large animals generally being fewer in number because of 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:01.680 their energy requirements within the environment, would seem to be 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:04.120 easier to drive to extinction than if you were trying 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:08.120 to exterminate something that's very easy to kill like rats. Yeah, 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:11.320 and again I think they the evidence seems to indicate 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.400 they would have been dangerous creatures because these were big animals. 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.280 Even the little bush moa was four and a half 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:21.600 feet tall. Now that's smaller than an adult southern castlewary, 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.800 which is generally five to six feet taller one and 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.880 a half to one point eight meters, But if you 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.280 see one, you would not mess with it, right. Yeah, 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:33.120 They're they're fierce creatures. So it seems like the larger 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.520 species of moa especially would certainly be in a position 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:38.960 to put the hurt on an aggressor and do so 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:41.200 in a way that's in keeping with what we see 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:45.360 in in extant rack eye species. But does that mean 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:47.680 they were a match for the humans that arrived on 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:51.360 their shores. No, because the archaic nowory were a very 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:56.600 skilled and advanced people. They arrived in waves from Hawaiki. 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.840 This is a mythical land that is usually identified as 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:03.080 to Hiti by historians. And they were of course skilled 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:07.240 sailors that arrived on wooden vessels capable of traversing great 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:10.960 distances at sea. For instance, the distance between Tahiti and 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:14.440 New Zealand is two thousand, nine hundred and fifty miles 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.720 or four thousand, seven hundred forty seven kilometers. I mean, 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.440 that's a long way to go, even if you know 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.640 exactly where you're going. But here we're talking about like 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:28.240 the settlement of a new, previously unknown island, right, So yeah, 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:30.880 I just I just really want to drive home. Like 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:35.520 the skilled nature of these Homo sapiens that arrived um, 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.200 and what's more, they brought with him both human cunning 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.360 and human tool use. They were masters of the club 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:45.640 and the spear especially. They also brought with them other animals, 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:50.840 including a breed of domesticated Polynesian dog known as the curry, which, 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:53.960 as with other Polynesian dogs, did not bark. But apparently 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:59.160 how they also brought with them, quite by accident, the kiori, 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:02.880 the an Asian rat um. Now, the curi is still 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:05.600 a pest species in New Zealand because, as we know, 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:09.840 once rats become established anywhere, they're very difficult to get 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:12.439 rid of. The curry dog, on the other hand, has 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.720 been extinct since the arrival of Europeans, and we'll talk 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:18.320 more about that species in a minute. And they also 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:20.879 brought with them um plants as well, such as the 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.240 sweet potato. Well way, does there any thinking that the 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.240 sweet potato could be involved in driving them OA extinct 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:30.120 or not? I have not read anything to suggest that, 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:32.720 but I mean that kind of that sort of thing 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.040 is certainly possible, right and generally speaking, when you have 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:40.240 humans from a distant land show up and introduce into 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:45.320 the ecosystem not only their destructive selves, but also invasive organisms, 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.439 uh there's you know, you're just really up ending the 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:51.639 croc pie. You know, you're really changing the chemistry of 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.919 the whole ecosystem around potentially. Oh yeah, well, actually, now 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:56.520 that I think about it, I could totally see how 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:58.280 I'm not saying this is the case here, but I 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.320 could totally see how something like this wheat potato could 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:05.400 drive a native species extinct. Because humans come, they bring 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.760 with them their crop staples. In order to plant those crops, 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:12.359 they have to, uh to establish agricultural zones that destroy 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.000 natural ecosystem. So yeah, I could see it. Again, not 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.119 saying we know that happened here right. All right, On 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:19.959 that note, let's take a quick break, and when we 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.480 come back, we will continue to discuss the collision between 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:29.920 Homo sapiens and the Mola. Thank alright, we're back. So 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.440 what do you need as fresh colonists in a world 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:37.680 like New Zealand. Well, let's see classic hierarchy of needs. 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.520 I'd say first you need you need fresh water, food, 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:44.159 and shelter probably right, Oh yeah, absolutely, Am I on 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.639 the right track here? Yes? Yes, another need that I 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:49.639 I didn't instantly think of. And part of this is 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.040 probably because I've never been to New Zealand myself, so 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:55.520 I don't have like the bodily experience of this. But 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:59.120 New Zealand can be quite cold, so you know you're 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:01.200 you're arriving in an new land, but also a land 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:03.639 where the temperature has dipped down a bit more. Uh 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.960 So the the archaic mallory. Uh they were fortunate and 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:11.359 they did bring within the couri dogs, which helps solve 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:15.240 some of these issues. Because the creatures had many utalitarian uses. 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.880 They could be eaten, their pelt could be made into clothing, 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:21.360 and other parts of its body could be used for 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:24.320 bits of clothing and tool use and so forth. But 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.919 beyond that, you know, when they started exploring this new world, 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.879 they very quickly would have discovered the moa, and the 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.679 moa would be just a gift of resources to these people. 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:37.760 Now here's a question that researchers and historians have have 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:41.199 pondered over the years. So what sort of moa population 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:45.320 did the archaic Mallory encounter. It's long been widely accepted that, 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:47.679 you know, the newly arrived humans at least played a 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.080 role in the extinction of the moa. But there there 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:53.040 there's been some disagreement in the past over to what extent. 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:58.040 For example, did the archaic Mallory encounter thriving populations of 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:00.959 moa across much of the islands, or did they encounter 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:04.360 dwindling populations of moa that were restricted to certain areas, 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:07.800 or did they find moa populations that were already in 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:11.760 severe decline. And of course, depending on the answer, it 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:16.040 paints a different picture of the extent of Maori moa 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.760 hunting and the impact of their arrival. You know, some 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:23.199 could argue that well, in perhaps climate change, volcanic eruptions, 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:28.240 and or disease had already impacted moa populations, and humans 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:32.080 were just the final straw. So the moa certainly went 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.520 extinct over the next century or so. You know, there's 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.600 no moa hiding in the wilds of New Zealand, sadly, 0:20:37.640 --> 0:20:40.040 no matter what anybody might try and tell you. And 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.000 it wasn't until the nineteenth century the Europeans discovered evidence 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.600 of the great birds, consisting of charred skeletons, gizzard stones, 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:50.080 and eggshells. They certainly told the tale of their demise. 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.560 DNA evidence, however, does shine light on the question of 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:58.840 pre maori moa populations. As Rachel Newer wrote in The 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:03.119 New York Times back in quote Morton Eric Allentoft, the 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:07.040 researcher the University of Copenhagen and colleagues analyzed DNA from 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:11.440 two D one moas collected from museums and new excavations 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:15.240 and estimated the age of these specimens using radio carbon dating. 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:18.840 They found that in the millenniums before humans arrived in 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:22.480 New Zealand, the moa displayed none of the genetic bottlenecking 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:27.440 indicative of a declining population. So there's no genetic evidence 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.399 of any of a decline in the moa during the 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:35.439 five thousand years prior to their rapid extinction. Uh, you know, 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:39.120 via the human arrival. Okay, so what does that tell us? Well, 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:41.679 that leaves us with this version of the story. The 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.560 archaic Mallory arrived on the shores of a new land 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.720 where strange, often gigantic birds were roaming around, and through 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:52.000 the use of spears and snares and hunting dogs and 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:54.679 the human cunning, they were able to bring the birds 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:57.679 down and process their kills with the same sort of 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:01.400 efficiency we see, you know, with the curios. It's also 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:04.840 possible that the moa had no natural fear of humans 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:07.160 as well, which would have just made them even more 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.159 susceptible to this kind of harvesting. Well, yeah, i'd imagine 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:15.080 that's possible, especially without um, without large mammalian predators on 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:19.080 the island of New Zealand, like they're only real predator 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:23.200 would have been the hostile eagle, right, which they're adapted 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:25.480 to a landscape in which the only thing to worry 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.439 about comes down at you from above. Who knows what 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:32.200 they would have done if, like, you know, a bipedal 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:35.440 hommaid walks up to them in a group. Yeah, exactly, 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:39.639 and and plus their extinction didn't just come via the 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:44.439 hunting of grown adult MOA's because they're they're large, eggs 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:47.600 were certainly sought after foods as well. We see that 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:50.320 from some of the you know, the evidence of you know, 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:53.160 they're finding egg shells and evidence of the eggs having 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:56.080 been consumed. And since the moa produced just one or 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:58.800 two eggs, the harvesting of their eggs would have further 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:03.159 spelled doom for nine species of moa. For example, the 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:06.639 I believe this is a co Cora egg, the largest 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:12.320 moa egg ever uncovered, would have weighed nine pounds when fresh. Wow. 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:16.679 To put that in perspective, an ostrich egg typically weighs 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:20.080 one point four kilograms or three point one pounds, which 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:22.800 is more than twenty times the weight of a chicken egg. 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:27.040 So we're talking about you know, two people, uh that 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:30.160 have arrived on these islands, you know, struggling for existence 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:33.440 like that. That's a huge bounty of resources in that egg. 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:37.480 Do you ever see anybody eat an ostrich egg? I 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:41.920 feel like I have before in the past, but I haven't. 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:43.280 It's not the kind of thing I've seen on a 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:46.280 menu recently. It did not come highly recommended to me. 0:23:48.359 --> 0:23:50.520 Apparently in addition to being very large, it's gott a 0:23:50.680 --> 0:23:53.000 it's got a tough shell, I guess as you might imagine. 0:23:53.000 --> 0:23:54.640 You know, it can't just have like an egg shell 0:23:54.720 --> 0:23:58.240 thick like a chicken egg shell thickness shell. Uh, that's 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:01.040 a little bit difficult to get into. But then once 0:24:01.080 --> 0:24:05.040 you do get into it, tremendous nutritional resources. Yeah, I 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:08.080 mean that that that's a one egg omelet for you. Yeah. 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:12.040 So basically the situation is the maori ended up hunting 0:24:12.080 --> 0:24:15.760 and harvesting the moa faster than the moa could reproduce, 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:19.520 and as the bounty of moa flesh and bone dwindled, 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:24.000 the moa hunting Maori diversified and came to depend on fishing, 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:28.120 fouling uh in the gathering of mollusks, etcetera. And this 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:32.000 led to the establishment of more permanent and semi permanent settlements. 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:34.040 So then it looks like it really was us. It 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:37.159 was people that drove the moa extinct. Oh yes, I 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:40.680 think at this point, especially with the genetic evidence, that's 0:24:40.720 --> 0:24:44.080 that's what without question. Now it is reported in why 0:24:44.119 --> 0:24:48.159 did New Zealand's moas Go Extinct? By Virginia Morrell Morton Allentoft, 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:51.560 who mentioned earlier evolutionary biologists of the University of Copenhagen, 0:24:51.920 --> 0:24:56.360 remarked that the idea may run counter to some ideas 0:24:56.359 --> 0:24:59.160 that we tend to have about indigenous people. We often 0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:02.520 think of them, uh, you know, living in equilibrium with nature. 0:25:03.080 --> 0:25:06.080 But the Maori end up killing and eating the moa 0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:10.359 at every stage of the creature's life. So alan Toft 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:13.520 contends that this sort of harmony with nature that we 0:25:13.800 --> 0:25:18.240 sometimes envisioned ultimately rarely exists within human beings, and that 0:25:18.440 --> 0:25:22.359 any arriving humans would have extinguished the moa the same way. 0:25:22.520 --> 0:25:26.080 And certainly we see other such extinctions, um, you know, 0:25:26.160 --> 0:25:29.639 including the distinctions of large flightless birds due to the 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:32.600 arrival of humans. So again, don't think less of the 0:25:32.640 --> 0:25:35.840 Maori for the extinction of the moa. Uh. These great 0:25:35.880 --> 0:25:38.679 birds were always on a collision course with humans, and 0:25:38.680 --> 0:25:42.399 if by some miracle the Polynesians had never found New Zealand, 0:25:42.760 --> 0:25:46.640 the Europeans would have eradicated the moa on their own. 0:25:46.800 --> 0:25:51.720 So again, it's an old story. Humans arrive somewhere, mega 0:25:51.720 --> 0:25:55.160 fauna is hunted into extinction. We see that with the mammoths. 0:25:55.200 --> 0:25:58.840 We see that with cave bears, giant kangaroos, etcetera. Oh yeah, 0:25:58.880 --> 0:26:02.600 I mean it seems like a ubiquitous picture of human 0:26:02.600 --> 0:26:07.119 development and geographical spread, like it is absolutely nothing unique 0:26:07.119 --> 0:26:11.720 about whatever individual culture reached this megafaunt of first. Now, 0:26:12.000 --> 0:26:14.199 I think one of the really fascinating questions in all 0:26:14.240 --> 0:26:17.800 of this is beyond the questions of like Europeans figuring 0:26:17.840 --> 0:26:21.399 out what the Mallory thought about the moa, is just 0:26:21.440 --> 0:26:24.560 a question of like, what how does that impact a people? 0:26:24.680 --> 0:26:26.520 You know, to to have come to this, to come 0:26:26.560 --> 0:26:29.840 to New Zealand to be essentially become the Mallory. And 0:26:29.880 --> 0:26:32.440 in the process of becoming the Mallory, you go through 0:26:32.440 --> 0:26:35.760 this period of moa hunting Mallory in which you have 0:26:35.880 --> 0:26:39.040 this you know, this bounty of these these creatures too 0:26:39.640 --> 0:26:42.560 to to hunt and feed on, and then they're gone. 0:26:42.680 --> 0:26:45.359 Then you have to diversify and change the way you live, 0:26:45.720 --> 0:26:48.680 Like what is the memory of that like in a people. 0:26:49.760 --> 0:26:53.200 I found a fascinating article about this published on the Conversation. 0:26:53.840 --> 0:26:59.880 It's by conservation biologist Priscilla Way, University of what Kat 0:27:00.160 --> 0:27:05.399 Associate Professor him A Wanga and Professor of computational biology 0:27:05.720 --> 0:27:08.600 Murray Cox. It was published in two thousand and eighteen 0:27:08.840 --> 0:27:12.200 in its title Dead as the Moa oral traditions show 0:27:12.280 --> 0:27:17.159 that early Maori recognized extinction interesting. So the team of 0:27:17.240 --> 0:27:21.880 researchers here, which includes a conservation biologist, a linguist, bioinformationist, 0:27:22.040 --> 0:27:25.480 and experts in Maori culture, they stressed that tracing the 0:27:25.560 --> 0:27:30.359 centuries old extinctions is difficult, but that through the collaborative 0:27:30.400 --> 0:27:36.479 analysis of ancestral sayings traditional ancestral sayings in Maori culture, 0:27:36.680 --> 0:27:39.840 they found that early Maori certainly paid attention to the 0:27:39.880 --> 0:27:42.520 state of flora and fauna in their environment, and that 0:27:42.600 --> 0:27:46.760 they recognized the extinction of the moa. But despite knowing 0:27:46.920 --> 0:27:49.959 roughly when and who you know regarding the more extinction, 0:27:50.040 --> 0:27:52.240 we don't really know a lot about how the Maori 0:27:52.320 --> 0:27:55.119 felt about and how they processed this event, which again 0:27:55.160 --> 0:27:57.960 would have been a major event in their lives. This 0:27:58.000 --> 0:28:00.880 was the destruction of an important food source as well 0:28:00.920 --> 0:28:03.960 as a source of various tools and parts. Uh. Some 0:28:04.080 --> 0:28:08.080 of this remains in the Maori oral traditions, specifically in 0:28:08.160 --> 0:28:12.640 these various ancestral sayings. So the researchers here they point 0:28:12.640 --> 0:28:16.879 out that of these ancestral sayings. Uh, the ones that 0:28:17.000 --> 0:28:21.159 refer to birds anyway, A disproportionate number of them refer 0:28:21.280 --> 0:28:24.560 to the Moa, to their appearance, to their into their nature, 0:28:24.880 --> 0:28:27.320 and their uses to humans. All right, so what would 0:28:27.359 --> 0:28:30.800 these things go like in translation? Well, yeah, I'm just 0:28:30.840 --> 0:28:33.000 gonna share the translations. So they do. They include the 0:28:33.040 --> 0:28:36.800 original Maori versions in this article, so encourage anyone to 0:28:37.280 --> 0:28:39.120 it's interested to check that out. But like, one of 0:28:39.160 --> 0:28:43.560 them is lost as the Moa was lost. So that's 0:28:43.640 --> 0:28:46.360 kind of like an expression like dead as a doornail, 0:28:46.480 --> 0:28:50.440 like yeah, or hidden as the Moa hit. And then 0:28:50.480 --> 0:28:53.560 here's another one. The people will disappear like the Moa. 0:28:54.280 --> 0:28:56.840 And this this one's really haunting because they point out 0:28:56.880 --> 0:29:01.440 that as the Europeans arrived, the Maori compared their plight 0:29:01.520 --> 0:29:04.719 to that of the Moa. Wow. So here's a quote 0:29:05.360 --> 0:29:09.640 Maori recalled the Moa after Europeans arrived, too malory. We're 0:29:09.680 --> 0:29:14.040 suffering badly from diseases and deprivation. In the late eighteen hundreds, 0:29:14.320 --> 0:29:17.520 it was as though the Maori world was being felled 0:29:17.600 --> 0:29:20.800 along with the forests. There was a very real fear 0:29:20.880 --> 0:29:24.840 among both Maori and Europeans that Maori people and culture 0:29:24.880 --> 0:29:29.800 would also disappear, just like the moa wow, that is haunting. Yeah, 0:29:29.920 --> 0:29:32.040 I'm still thinking about these expressions. I was trying to 0:29:32.080 --> 0:29:35.040 think of a point of comparison. Of course, one is 0:29:35.280 --> 0:29:39.160 uh is like gone the way of the dinosaurs uh, 0:29:39.600 --> 0:29:41.840 an expression in English. Though, of course, our knowledge of 0:29:41.840 --> 0:29:44.880 where the dinosaurs went does not come from cultural memory. 0:29:44.920 --> 0:29:49.320 It comes from like something we learned through science. I 0:29:49.360 --> 0:29:51.680 guess you could maybe say gone the way of the dodos. 0:29:51.760 --> 0:29:54.800 Some people say that that. Yeah, though I guess when 0:29:54.840 --> 0:29:57.360 people say that, they tendn't they tend not to do 0:29:57.400 --> 0:30:01.400 it with any accepted role in the in the extinction, 0:30:01.520 --> 0:30:03.280 you know, Like I feel like that's one of the 0:30:03.560 --> 0:30:07.240 aspects here worth pondering is that, you know, the Mallory 0:30:07.360 --> 0:30:12.120 would have have realized that their ancestors played this role 0:30:12.160 --> 0:30:14.760 in the extinction. Now that's not to say that, you know, 0:30:14.800 --> 0:30:17.440 did it on purpose. Obviously, there's a there's a huge 0:30:17.440 --> 0:30:20.320 difference between you know, say, setting out to cause an 0:30:20.320 --> 0:30:22.920 extinction and I don't. You know, obviously they wouldn't want 0:30:22.920 --> 0:30:24.959 to have to have done that, because these creatures were 0:30:25.000 --> 0:30:28.760 a source of of of of vast resources to them. 0:30:29.120 --> 0:30:32.080 But you know, they were you know, ultimately it was 0:30:32.120 --> 0:30:36.240 it was not something that were capable of exerting control over, 0:30:36.440 --> 0:30:39.040 you know, I mean, like it's it's really has always 0:30:39.080 --> 0:30:41.760 been a human struggle to figure out to what extent 0:30:41.840 --> 0:30:47.880 we can exploit the natural world without damaging it beyond control. 0:30:47.960 --> 0:30:50.720 And clearly like that is something that is still a 0:30:50.800 --> 0:30:55.520 major stumbling block to human beings. We still mishandle that 0:30:55.640 --> 0:30:59.000 same equation on a on a daily basis. All Right, 0:30:59.000 --> 0:31:01.480 we're gonna take one more break, but when we come back, 0:31:01.760 --> 0:31:03.880 you know, we're going to move beyond the extinction of 0:31:03.880 --> 0:31:07.320 the moa and ponder the question, well, could we bring 0:31:07.360 --> 0:31:14.560 the moa back? Than alright, we're back a dinosaur story? 0:31:15.680 --> 0:31:17.920 Is that a movie? We're back a dinosaur story? You 0:31:17.960 --> 0:31:20.280 don't know that movie? I don't know that. I do. 0:31:20.600 --> 0:31:23.040 Oh man, I think I rented that when I was 0:31:23.040 --> 0:31:27.320 a kid. Let's see when did that come out? Based 0:31:27.800 --> 0:31:30.000 seven book? Oh yeah, I rented that one when I 0:31:30.040 --> 0:31:32.240 was a kid. That was that was a Turtles video 0:31:33.080 --> 0:31:36.680 find that I brought home, avenge that from the from 0:31:36.720 --> 0:31:39.880 the bone heap, and I don't think it was good. 0:31:39.960 --> 0:31:41.880 I mean, I haven't seen it since I was a child. 0:31:42.080 --> 0:31:44.440 It does not seem like one of the animated dinosaur 0:31:44.480 --> 0:31:46.600 movies that would hold up best. I don't know. I'm 0:31:46.640 --> 0:31:49.520 looking it up. And this voicecast. You got John Goodman, 0:31:50.040 --> 0:31:54.120 you got Jay Leno, Walter Cronkite. I think Walter Cronkite 0:31:54.120 --> 0:31:57.680 plays like a mad scientist who brings dinosaurs through a 0:31:57.720 --> 0:32:00.880 time portal or something and puts him into New York 0:32:00.960 --> 0:32:03.760 in the in the nineties. And Julia Child is in 0:32:03.800 --> 0:32:08.320 this really yeah, does she play one of the dinosaurs. No, sadly, 0:32:08.400 --> 0:32:13.440 she plays a worker at the Museum of Natural History. Okay, well, 0:32:13.640 --> 0:32:16.480 I don't know. Maybe that would be uh interesting to 0:32:16.520 --> 0:32:19.480 go back and excavate at some point. But it looks great. 0:32:19.480 --> 0:32:25.920 It has four directors, a mark of quality. Okay, so 0:32:26.000 --> 0:32:29.760 we're talking about the possible resurrection of the moa. Now, 0:32:30.280 --> 0:32:32.200 there was a pretty good article I was reading about 0:32:32.200 --> 0:32:35.480 this on stat by the science writer Sharon Begley from 0:32:35.520 --> 0:32:40.240 February seven, uh and concerned the possible d extinction of 0:32:40.320 --> 0:32:43.760 one species of moa. Of course, if you're not familiar 0:32:43.800 --> 0:32:45.840 with the concept of d extinction, it has come up 0:32:45.840 --> 0:32:47.600 on the show before, but you can probably figure it 0:32:47.600 --> 0:32:49.600 out from the name, right It's also known as a 0:32:49.640 --> 0:32:53.239 resurrection biology. It refers to the process of bringing an 0:32:53.280 --> 0:32:56.600 extinct species back to life. The pop culture example that 0:32:56.680 --> 0:33:00.120 everybody knows is Jurassic Park. Now, what did they do 0:33:00.160 --> 0:33:04.440 In Jurassic Park? They found ancient deposits of amber or 0:33:04.520 --> 0:33:09.480 fossilized tree sap in which dinosaur era mosquitoes had been 0:33:09.520 --> 0:33:12.320 trapped when the sap was still soft, and then the 0:33:12.360 --> 0:33:15.600 sap hardened over time and then fossilized in the ground. 0:33:16.240 --> 0:33:19.360 Presumably the the mosquitoes in the sap were trapped with 0:33:19.400 --> 0:33:22.120 their bellies full of dinosaur blood that they had just 0:33:22.240 --> 0:33:25.120 feasted on. And so the scientists in the book, in 0:33:25.160 --> 0:33:28.479 the movie Jurassic Park, they extract the preserved dinosaur blood, 0:33:28.800 --> 0:33:32.120 they sequence it out, they get mr DNA from the 0:33:32.280 --> 0:33:35.080 from the insect bellies, and then they used that blood 0:33:35.120 --> 0:33:38.680 and the DNA sequenced from it to clone dinosaurs. It was, 0:33:38.840 --> 0:33:41.440 of course, I would say, a very ingenious plot device, 0:33:41.520 --> 0:33:44.120 but unfortunately it looks like it probably would not work 0:33:44.160 --> 0:33:47.920 in reality. What if? What if? The reason it didn't work, though, 0:33:48.200 --> 0:33:51.440 was that it turns out the mosquitoes had not consumed 0:33:51.480 --> 0:33:54.760 the blood of dinosaurs, but he consumed the blood of 0:33:54.840 --> 0:33:59.040 the Time Travelers from Ray Bradberry Sound of thunder Man. 0:34:00.160 --> 0:34:02.480 What what were the chances that would be a very 0:34:02.480 --> 0:34:06.960 good closed time travel loop? What? What do you like 0:34:07.080 --> 0:34:09.600 better the time travel movies where you go back and 0:34:09.680 --> 0:34:12.000 actually change the past, or the ones where you go 0:34:12.080 --> 0:34:14.279 back and it proves to be a closed loop where 0:34:14.320 --> 0:34:18.279 you just cause whatever present already happened. Oh, you have 0:34:18.360 --> 0:34:20.279 to go back and forth between the two. You know. 0:34:20.800 --> 0:34:23.040 I feel like that's the only way it really works. 0:34:23.080 --> 0:34:26.320 You know, it's like it's the sour in the suite 0:34:26.600 --> 0:34:28.840 with your time travel. But let's bring things back to 0:34:29.080 --> 0:34:33.520 Jurassic Park. Why didn't it work? Okay, so basically there 0:34:33.520 --> 0:34:37.279 are several reasons, but they all come down to time. Now. 0:34:37.320 --> 0:34:39.600 One of the reasons is not in fact that you 0:34:39.640 --> 0:34:43.640 couldn't discover a mosquito with prehistoric blood and it's guts 0:34:43.719 --> 0:34:46.960 that uh. But believe it or not, paleontologists actually have 0:34:47.160 --> 0:34:52.000 discovered preserved insects full of the remains of not not intact, 0:34:52.040 --> 0:34:56.080 but the remains of prehistoric blood in fossil beds. Uh. 0:34:56.120 --> 0:34:58.480 And this is a slight tangent. But I didn't already 0:34:58.480 --> 0:35:00.320 know this, and I was amazed by what I was 0:35:00.360 --> 0:35:03.839 reading here, so there's one prominent example I could find. 0:35:03.880 --> 0:35:05.880 I don't know if this is still the only major 0:35:05.920 --> 0:35:09.400 example known today, but it was described in a research 0:35:09.480 --> 0:35:13.480 article published in P and A s in called hemoglobin 0:35:13.560 --> 0:35:18.239 derived porphyrins preserved in a Middle Eocene blood engorged mosquito, 0:35:18.800 --> 0:35:22.160 and it was by Daily Greenwall to Julia S. Garreva, 0:35:22.320 --> 0:35:26.440 Sandra M. Celia Strom, tim Rose, and Ralph E. Harback, 0:35:27.000 --> 0:35:29.239 and the discovery was also written up by Ed Young 0:35:29.280 --> 0:35:31.680 in a short news item for the journal Nature on 0:35:31.840 --> 0:35:36.600 October four. So the researchers here were examining a total 0:35:36.680 --> 0:35:41.439 of thirty six mosquito specimens from a shale deposit known 0:35:41.480 --> 0:35:45.400 as the Coal Creek member of the kischen In formation 0:35:45.520 --> 0:35:49.879 in northwestern Montana, and the layer from which they were 0:35:50.080 --> 0:35:53.759 recovered is estimated to be about forty six million years old. 0:35:53.840 --> 0:35:58.240 So this collection of fossilized mosquitoes included two previously unknown 0:35:58.280 --> 0:36:02.560 species of the genus Lisda. One was cool Assada kischen 0:36:02.680 --> 0:36:07.920 in and one was cool Asda lemniscata. But one of 0:36:07.920 --> 0:36:11.120 the mosquitoes from this boniard was truly special and you 0:36:11.120 --> 0:36:13.360 can look up images if you want on the Internet. 0:36:13.600 --> 0:36:16.120 In the words of the researchers, the image of this 0:36:16.160 --> 0:36:21.080 specimen was quote obviously that of a female blood engorged 0:36:21.239 --> 0:36:25.600 mosquito with non plumos antennae and a very dark red 0:36:25.760 --> 0:36:32.160 black distended abdomen compared with the non hematophagus male. Uh 0:36:32.200 --> 0:36:34.560 so there's a new word for your vampire fiction. By 0:36:34.560 --> 0:36:37.720 the way, him at aphagus means eats blood or drinks blood. 0:36:37.960 --> 0:36:40.960 Non hematophagus would mean does not drink blood like the 0:36:41.040 --> 0:36:44.839 male mosquitoes. The male mosquito doesn't drink blood. Obviously, if 0:36:44.880 --> 0:36:47.719 your gut is busting with blood like this, uh, this 0:36:47.800 --> 0:36:52.000 female mosquito here, you are him atophagus. But but ed 0:36:52.080 --> 0:36:54.719 Young writes in his summary that prior to this discovery, 0:36:54.719 --> 0:36:59.200 paleontologists had found fossils of blood sucking insects, but we 0:36:59.280 --> 0:37:02.200 always had to yes what these insects were feeding on 0:37:02.280 --> 0:37:05.960 through kind of indirect cues, like preserved evidence of blood 0:37:05.960 --> 0:37:10.640 borne parasites contained in their digestive systems. This fossil find 0:37:10.719 --> 0:37:14.960 was totally different because it contained direct molecular evidence of 0:37:15.000 --> 0:37:18.800 blood feeding within the insects gut, specifically lots of iron 0:37:19.200 --> 0:37:24.040 and organic compounds called porphyrans, which are constituents of hemoglobin, 0:37:24.080 --> 0:37:28.239 that's the protein responsible for transporting oxygen and blood uh. 0:37:28.239 --> 0:37:31.160 And the find was also extremely unlikely. In the words 0:37:31.200 --> 0:37:34.759 of the lead author, Dale Greenwalt quote, the abdomen of 0:37:34.760 --> 0:37:38.400 a blood engorged mosquito is like a balloon ready to burst. 0:37:38.719 --> 0:37:41.719 It is very fragile. The chances that it wouldn't have 0:37:41.719 --> 0:37:47.680 disintegrated prior to fossilization were infinitesimally small. And it's amazing 0:37:47.680 --> 0:37:50.799 because that's on top of the already minuscule chances of 0:37:50.840 --> 0:37:54.120 any animal being fossilized in the first place. I mean, remember, 0:37:54.160 --> 0:37:58.400 the fossil lottery has few winners. Almost all organisms that 0:37:58.440 --> 0:38:02.160 ever live just decom hose and disappear without leaving a trace. 0:38:03.320 --> 0:38:05.880 But unfortunately, there are a couple of reasons you cannot 0:38:06.040 --> 0:38:08.840 use this mosquito or a mosquito like it to extract 0:38:09.000 --> 0:38:15.160 dino d NA DINO. Both of these reasons have to 0:38:15.200 --> 0:38:17.920 do with time. So the first is that the fossil 0:38:17.960 --> 0:38:20.480 mosquito is only forty six million years old. So the 0:38:20.560 --> 0:38:23.399 last of the non avian dinosaurs we know died out 0:38:23.440 --> 0:38:26.960 in the KPg extinction that was about sixty six million 0:38:27.040 --> 0:38:29.560 years ago. This Mosquito would have been from the Middle 0:38:29.600 --> 0:38:33.080 EO scene. So if it were possible to clone anything 0:38:33.200 --> 0:38:36.200 based on what was in the mosquitoes guts, it would 0:38:36.239 --> 0:38:39.000 have to be something that lived in North America around 0:38:39.040 --> 0:38:41.839 that period. And I was like, well, hell, I'll look 0:38:41.920 --> 0:38:44.279 up a candidate, and I found a pretty cool one 0:38:44.360 --> 0:38:47.160 that the coolest candidate I could come up with was 0:38:47.280 --> 0:38:51.359 named Miss Sonics, whose name means middle claw, and who 0:38:51.440 --> 0:38:56.040 was part of a now extinct larger group of carnivorous ungulates. 0:38:56.400 --> 0:39:01.680 Carnivorous ungulates. Remember the unguluts are the hoof to mammals. Uh. 0:39:01.719 --> 0:39:08.359 So examples would be dear you know, bo vines, uh, horses, 0:39:08.880 --> 0:39:11.200 but these, of course are carnivorous. You can't think of 0:39:11.200 --> 0:39:15.040 on gill. It's like that today there were once predatory 0:39:15.040 --> 0:39:19.640 carnivorous hoofed mammals roaming the continents. Uh. You know, trying 0:39:19.640 --> 0:39:22.200 to think of a donkey that could eat you. Yeah. 0:39:22.320 --> 0:39:24.279 And this is a really cool and to look up 0:39:25.120 --> 0:39:27.799 paleo art for because it seems like it's just a 0:39:27.920 --> 0:39:30.560 very hard creature to try and envision in your head. 0:39:30.640 --> 0:39:33.279 You know, a lot of the illustrations end up just 0:39:33.280 --> 0:39:37.040 looking like this weird kind of like long snouted, almost 0:39:37.320 --> 0:39:41.239 almost like a cross between a rodent and a lion. Uh. 0:39:41.480 --> 0:39:44.560 It's you get a really really weird sense of category 0:39:44.560 --> 0:39:46.840 confusion when you look at these images. I mean a 0:39:46.880 --> 0:39:49.560 lot of uh descriptions say it would have been in 0:39:49.560 --> 0:39:52.200 some ways superficially like a wolf, but of course it 0:39:52.280 --> 0:39:55.480 was not of the order of the dogs. It was 0:39:55.520 --> 0:39:57.839 not like a big cat. It's not like a wolf. 0:39:57.880 --> 0:40:00.920 It's not any of that In terms of evolution airy relationships. 0:40:00.960 --> 0:40:03.480 It's more like a deer or a cow or a 0:40:03.560 --> 0:40:07.120 horse or something. But it is a carnivore that would 0:40:07.160 --> 0:40:09.480 you know, might bite your leg off. So anyway, I'm 0:40:09.520 --> 0:40:11.600 all for cloning a ton of those if we could, 0:40:12.560 --> 0:40:15.319 But again I want to stress that, uh, there was 0:40:15.440 --> 0:40:19.320 not clonable material within that mosquito's abdomen, and in fact, 0:40:19.360 --> 0:40:22.640 based on what we know, there couldn't be because the 0:40:22.719 --> 0:40:26.000 other reason you couldn't clone dinosaurs from the gut contents 0:40:26.040 --> 0:40:29.480 of any mosquito is that DNA is extremely fragile. It 0:40:29.560 --> 0:40:33.400 breaks down very quickly and starts breaking down within hours 0:40:33.480 --> 0:40:37.200 of the death of an organism. After forty six million years, 0:40:37.280 --> 0:40:39.920 DNA would degrade to the point where a genome can 0:40:39.960 --> 0:40:43.480 no longer be recovered all the more at anything older 0:40:43.520 --> 0:40:45.680 than sixty six million years, so you can't get to 0:40:45.719 --> 0:40:48.799 a dinosaur. Uh So, then you might wonder, well, how 0:40:48.840 --> 0:40:52.560 long can DNA last in in preserved animal remains? What's 0:40:52.600 --> 0:40:55.600 the farthest back that we could go to sequence the 0:40:55.600 --> 0:40:59.399 genome of an extinct creature, extract all that information, and 0:40:59.440 --> 0:41:02.879 then maybe even clone it back to life if possible. Well, 0:41:02.960 --> 0:41:05.760 the MOA has a part to play in the answer 0:41:05.760 --> 0:41:08.640 to this question. I found this out by total serendipity. 0:41:08.680 --> 0:41:10.839 I didn't even know this when I started looking into 0:41:10.840 --> 0:41:14.839 this subject. Uh So, to determine the period within which 0:41:14.920 --> 0:41:18.440 you could reasonably expect to extract usable DNA from a sample, 0:41:18.880 --> 0:41:22.000 you need to know the rate of molecular decay for 0:41:22.320 --> 0:41:25.840 DNA as a molecule. And there was a study inve 0:41:26.040 --> 0:41:28.640 that looked into this question. It was by our friend 0:41:28.719 --> 0:41:32.440 Morton E. Allentoft that you mentioned earlier, but also by 0:41:32.520 --> 0:41:38.600 Matthew Collins, David Harker, James Highly, Charlotte L. Oscome, Marie L. Hale, 0:41:38.840 --> 0:41:42.279 Paula F. Campos uh oh, and apparently add others. I 0:41:42.280 --> 0:41:45.000 guess it had a lot of authors. Sorry, but it 0:41:45.040 --> 0:41:47.560 was called the Half Life of DNA and Bone Measuring 0:41:47.600 --> 0:41:50.600 Decay Kinetics in a hundred and fifty eight dated Fossils 0:41:51.120 --> 0:41:54.000 published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society b So. 0:41:54.040 --> 0:41:57.400 The authors here examined mitochondrial DNA from a hundred and 0:41:57.440 --> 0:42:01.520 fifty eight radio carbon dated bones of the extinct New 0:42:01.600 --> 0:42:05.280 Zealand MOA, all from between six hundred and eight thousand 0:42:05.400 --> 0:42:10.160 years ago, and all preserved in roughly equivalent environmental conditions. 0:42:10.200 --> 0:42:12.120 And that's very important because it gives us a point 0:42:12.160 --> 0:42:15.240 of reference. If like the conditions under which the bones 0:42:15.239 --> 0:42:18.320 are preserved or roughly the same, then you can start 0:42:18.360 --> 0:42:21.040 to get a good idea between them what the average 0:42:21.160 --> 0:42:23.560 rate of decay is. It's not going to vary as 0:42:23.640 --> 0:42:27.840 much due to differing environmental factors. Um so, they estimated 0:42:28.440 --> 0:42:31.400 from this sample that the average half life of DNA 0:42:31.960 --> 0:42:34.840 was about five hundred and twenty one years. So you 0:42:34.840 --> 0:42:37.280 start with an original sample of DNA and a bone, 0:42:37.680 --> 0:42:40.480 and after five twenty one years half of it's gone. 0:42:41.200 --> 0:42:43.760 Then after another five hundred and twenty one years, half 0:42:43.800 --> 0:42:45.920 of what remains is broken down, So now you're down 0:42:45.960 --> 0:42:49.640 to a quarter of the original concentration. So the the 0:42:49.680 --> 0:42:53.560 decay adds up fast. Now, of course, the decay rate 0:42:53.600 --> 0:42:55.880 of DNA will not be the same in all cases. 0:42:55.920 --> 0:42:59.480 It's going to depend on factors about in what conditions 0:42:59.480 --> 0:43:03.000 it's preserved. But even in ideal conditions, there does appear 0:43:03.000 --> 0:43:06.640 to be a ceiling on how long DNA lasts, or 0:43:06.880 --> 0:43:09.440 or how long you could expect to get any usable 0:43:09.480 --> 0:43:13.440 information out of it. Under the absolute best conditions. This 0:43:13.480 --> 0:43:17.560 means basically every molecular bond between the nucleotides of the 0:43:17.680 --> 0:43:20.839 DNA would be broken down after about six point eight 0:43:20.880 --> 0:43:24.280 million years, but long before that, even if some bonds 0:43:24.320 --> 0:43:27.440 are still intact, the DNA would be so broken up 0:43:27.480 --> 0:43:32.520 that would be unreadable. The maximum recoverability threshold for meaningful 0:43:32.560 --> 0:43:35.840 genetic information might be something like one point five million 0:43:35.920 --> 0:43:38.120 years or so. So it seems to have been the 0:43:38.120 --> 0:43:41.400 scientific consensus for for several years now that DNA is 0:43:41.480 --> 0:43:45.000 way too short lived for us to ever clone dinosaurs. 0:43:45.040 --> 0:43:48.160 Except I did come across a really recent study just 0:43:48.280 --> 0:43:53.400 from this month March. Uh. Now, it doesn't disprove that this, 0:43:53.520 --> 0:43:57.759 but it is a still controversial reported finding that would 0:43:57.800 --> 0:44:00.880 seem to challenge this if it's correct. So it was 0:44:00.920 --> 0:44:06.040 published in National Science Review in March by Alita im 0:44:06.080 --> 0:44:09.799 Baliol at All and uh so the the author's right 0:44:09.880 --> 0:44:14.040 here quote a histological ground section from a duck build 0:44:14.120 --> 0:44:20.440 dinosaur nestling in the species is uh. Hippacrosaurus Stebben Jerry 0:44:21.120 --> 0:44:26.719 revealed micro structures morphologically consistent with nuclei and chromosomes in 0:44:26.800 --> 0:44:32.480 cells within calcified cartilage. We hypothesize that this exceptional cellular 0:44:32.920 --> 0:44:37.920 preservation extended to the molecular level and had molecular features 0:44:38.280 --> 0:44:41.759 in common with extant avian cartilage. So this is a 0:44:41.840 --> 0:44:45.200 duck build dinosaur. It's another Montana special discovered in the 0:44:45.280 --> 0:44:47.919 nineteen eighties. It would have been a nest of young 0:44:48.000 --> 0:44:51.479 duck build herbivores that all died sometime around seventy five 0:44:51.560 --> 0:44:55.960 million years ago, and the paleontologists here were examining skull 0:44:56.080 --> 0:44:59.279 shards from these juveniles, and the shards would have been 0:44:59.320 --> 0:45:01.680 made out of car ritilage rather than out of bone. 0:45:02.400 --> 0:45:06.360 But when examining these cartilage skull shards are the remains 0:45:06.400 --> 0:45:10.920 of them. Uh. The researchers believe that they discovered signs 0:45:10.920 --> 0:45:15.920 of intact cell nuclei and DNA within these fragments, but 0:45:16.000 --> 0:45:18.400 then again, I want to say a lot of paleontologists 0:45:18.400 --> 0:45:21.680 are skeptical about this supposed find. Of course, there's the 0:45:21.680 --> 0:45:25.400 theoretical limitation on how long DNA would last, or at 0:45:25.440 --> 0:45:28.560 least is believed to last on a molecular basis. But 0:45:28.600 --> 0:45:31.680 I was also reading a piece by a University of 0:45:31.719 --> 0:45:36.080 Bristol vertebrate paleontologists named Michael Benton, who thinks it's more 0:45:36.200 --> 0:45:39.520 likely that if there is any actual DNA in this sample, 0:45:39.560 --> 0:45:43.640 it came from recent external contamination, not from a dinosaur. 0:45:44.040 --> 0:45:45.400 So I guess we'll have to wait and see what 0:45:45.480 --> 0:45:49.120 happens there with follow up research. But I don't know. 0:45:49.239 --> 0:45:53.520 That's interesting and he gives us some hope, right, But 0:45:53.560 --> 0:45:55.120 I've got to bring it back to the MOA. So, 0:45:55.239 --> 0:45:57.919 whatever the truth about DNA from millions of years ago, 0:45:57.960 --> 0:46:02.000 as unlikely as that seems, the MOA has existed much 0:46:02.040 --> 0:46:04.640 more recently, and for that reason, the idea of recovering 0:46:04.719 --> 0:46:07.719 the genome of the MOA and bringing a species of 0:46:07.760 --> 0:46:11.120 MOA back from extinction is much more plausible by orders 0:46:11.120 --> 0:46:16.040 of magnitude. So back to that Sharon Begley article from 0:46:16.120 --> 0:46:18.319 She writes about how there's a team of researchers based 0:46:18.360 --> 0:46:21.560 out of Harvard University that were able to assemble an 0:46:21.600 --> 0:46:25.600 almost complete genome for our old friend we mentioned in 0:46:25.600 --> 0:46:27.640 the last episode, and I think earlier in this one, 0:46:27.719 --> 0:46:31.319 the little bush moa or a nomal opterics did aform us. 0:46:31.760 --> 0:46:34.000 So these again would not be the biggest ones. These 0:46:34.040 --> 0:46:37.439 are not the towering moa. These would be the smaller variety. 0:46:37.480 --> 0:46:39.279 But I would not be surprised if they could still 0:46:39.360 --> 0:46:41.560 kick your throat out. You know, they probably were some 0:46:41.600 --> 0:46:44.920 tough little customers. As we were talking about earlier, the 0:46:45.200 --> 0:46:48.640 little bush moa when extinct in the thirteenth century. Now, 0:46:48.640 --> 0:46:51.600 this work was dependent on DNA extracted from the tow 0:46:51.719 --> 0:46:54.239 bone of a moa that was housed in the Royal 0:46:54.280 --> 0:46:57.319 Ontario Museum in Toronto. And this kind of reconstruction is 0:46:57.360 --> 0:47:00.200 not easy at all because, well, you can extra act 0:47:00.239 --> 0:47:04.719 a lot of genetic information the physical genome that, like 0:47:04.920 --> 0:47:07.360 the chromosomes, are often kind of shattered, so you have 0:47:07.440 --> 0:47:10.319 to figure out how all the pieces of information that 0:47:10.360 --> 0:47:15.120 you've extracted fit together into a broader chromosomal structure. And 0:47:15.200 --> 0:47:17.600 as with other assemblies of this kind, the researchers here 0:47:17.640 --> 0:47:20.800 looked into the genomes of living relatives for clues, basing 0:47:20.840 --> 0:47:23.319 the reconstruction of the pieces on the reference template of 0:47:23.320 --> 0:47:27.120 an EMU, kind of like how mammoth reconstruction would be 0:47:27.120 --> 0:47:30.120 based on the genome of of living elephants and things 0:47:30.160 --> 0:47:32.759 like that. Now, at the time of Begley's article, there 0:47:32.760 --> 0:47:35.120 were several experts in the field who praised the work. 0:47:35.640 --> 0:47:38.839 Morton Allan Toft, who we were talking about several times, Uh, 0:47:38.880 --> 0:47:42.200 he called it a significant step forward. Also, the evolutionary 0:47:42.239 --> 0:47:45.640 molecular biologist Beth Shapiro of You See Santa Cruz praised 0:47:45.680 --> 0:47:49.240 the research. There was one concerning feature. So this paper 0:47:50.080 --> 0:47:52.920 in ten was published on bio archive, which is a 0:47:53.000 --> 0:47:56.840 non peer reviewed preprint server. It's so it's like, nothing 0:47:56.840 --> 0:47:59.000 wrong with something going up on there. It's a place 0:47:59.040 --> 0:48:02.480 to post research for public access and review before it 0:48:02.520 --> 0:48:04.960 gets published in a journal. But I was unable to 0:48:04.960 --> 0:48:07.920 find evidence of this paper appearing in an actual journal 0:48:08.000 --> 0:48:10.960 since then, So I'm not sure what that means. Uh, 0:48:11.040 --> 0:48:13.360 maybe it doesn't mean anything, or maybe it means something 0:48:13.360 --> 0:48:16.240 about this genome assembly didn't hold up to scrutiny. I guess. 0:48:16.800 --> 0:48:19.200 I guess we'll have to wait and see. But either way, 0:48:19.560 --> 0:48:22.560 the recent disappearance of the moa I think absolutely makes 0:48:22.600 --> 0:48:26.000 them a potential candidate for de extinction, and this research 0:48:26.040 --> 0:48:28.880 helps move things in that direction. Now. Of course, just 0:48:28.920 --> 0:48:31.520 because we could doesn't necessarily mean that we should. I 0:48:31.760 --> 0:48:33.520 I don't know. I don't know if I have a 0:48:33.560 --> 0:48:36.879 position on the ethics of de extinction overall. But uh, 0:48:37.120 --> 0:48:39.520 obviously that's a question that should be considered before we 0:48:39.719 --> 0:48:41.840 bring these things back and just set them loose at 0:48:41.880 --> 0:48:44.520 Disney World. But what an attraction that would be at 0:48:44.560 --> 0:48:46.640 disney World, Right, you go up to the Mickey, you 0:48:46.640 --> 0:48:48.480 get your picture taken with the Mickey, then you go 0:48:48.560 --> 0:48:50.759 up to the moa, you try to get your picture taken. 0:48:50.840 --> 0:48:55.279 You see if it cooperates danger Sure, but it's like 0:48:55.320 --> 0:48:58.640 what if what if Jonald Duck could kick what if 0:48:58.640 --> 0:49:02.160 you had them my decloto? Yeah, I mean there's so 0:49:02.200 --> 0:49:07.319 many factors to consider and potentially reintroducing a creature like this, 0:49:07.680 --> 0:49:11.719 you know, even if it's feasible to to bring them back, 0:49:11.719 --> 0:49:15.520 because again, you're you're to a certain extent doing what 0:49:15.680 --> 0:49:18.800 all these different waves of interference have done in the past. 0:49:18.840 --> 0:49:21.560 You're taking the environment and you're shaking it up again. 0:49:21.640 --> 0:49:24.200 You're you're adding something to it, even if it's something 0:49:24.200 --> 0:49:27.839 that used to be there in some form. Um, it's uh, 0:49:28.120 --> 0:49:30.759 it's a difficult equation. And then I imagine also there's 0:49:30.760 --> 0:49:33.399 the argument of is this the best use of our 0:49:33.440 --> 0:49:36.400 our energy towards you should we instead be focusing on 0:49:36.440 --> 0:49:38.680 creatures that are still with us, that can be um, 0:49:39.080 --> 0:49:41.880 that can be saved, or creatures that are saying extinct 0:49:41.880 --> 0:49:44.040 in the wild but can still be reintroduced. I mean 0:49:44.600 --> 0:49:46.680 a lot of those are are you know, entirely separate 0:49:46.719 --> 0:49:48.840 battles so that you know that that you know certainly 0:49:48.840 --> 0:49:52.680 involved genetics. But um, yeah, it's it's it's it's a 0:49:52.680 --> 0:49:55.319 complex situation. It's not just a matter of, oh, well 0:49:55.360 --> 0:49:57.960 we can bring it back, let's do it. Moa is everywhere. 0:49:58.239 --> 0:49:59.840 I'm just saying, if we were going to make a 0:50:00.040 --> 0:50:05.120 hark with de extinctive animals, maybe maybe extinct giant birds 0:50:05.360 --> 0:50:09.920 rather than dinosaurs. Since you can't do the non avian dinosaurs, 0:50:10.360 --> 0:50:13.640 why not terror birds in MOA's Without a doubt, I would. 0:50:13.719 --> 0:50:16.080 I would love to see one of these creatures in 0:50:16.080 --> 0:50:21.200 real life. They just sound amazing. It's you know, to 0:50:21.480 --> 0:50:26.520 see these these two legged organisms handling about, Uh, muntioned 0:50:26.560 --> 0:50:31.680 on twigs and branches. Uh, it would be beautiful, provided 0:50:31.719 --> 0:50:34.520 you know, there was there was the space for it. Um. 0:50:34.640 --> 0:50:35.919 So I don't know it would be interested to see 0:50:35.920 --> 0:50:37.759 what happens with this. I know it's been It's been 0:50:37.760 --> 0:50:42.160 brought up before sometimes I think by politicians even um, 0:50:42.200 --> 0:50:45.280 and it's been kind of controversial. There's a New Zealand 0:50:45.360 --> 0:50:48.640 politician who for some reason has been very in favor 0:50:48.640 --> 0:50:52.279 of bringing back the moa. I'm not sure why, by 0:50:52.320 --> 0:50:55.120 the way, I just looked it up. Unfortunately, the terror 0:50:55.120 --> 0:50:58.560 birds appeared to be just out of range given the 0:50:58.719 --> 0:51:01.200 figures we were citing early I think they went extinct 0:51:01.239 --> 0:51:05.040 probably around one point eight million years ago. Uh. Well, 0:51:05.520 --> 0:51:09.120 there you go, the mo moas it is then MOA's 0:51:09.200 --> 0:51:13.840 elephant bird's anything else you know within within reach that 0:51:13.880 --> 0:51:15.520 would have to Those would have to be the main 0:51:15.560 --> 0:51:18.280 attractions at our park. Give me a host eagle baby, 0:51:18.760 --> 0:51:22.160 Oh yeah, for for sure. All right, So there you 0:51:22.200 --> 0:51:25.279 have it are two part look at the Moa, The 0:51:25.400 --> 0:51:27.960 Rise of the Moa, the Twilight of the Moa. I 0:51:27.960 --> 0:51:32.760 found this to be just a really engrossing, uh project 0:51:33.000 --> 0:51:35.160 to work on because it ends up, you know, dealing 0:51:35.160 --> 0:51:38.319 with so many things you're dealing with, uh, with biology, 0:51:38.719 --> 0:51:44.680 evolution of organisms, You're dealing with the history of human migration, UH, 0:51:45.000 --> 0:51:48.839 colonial disruption, and then the possibility of of bringing an 0:51:48.880 --> 0:51:52.759 extinct creature back to life through genetic science. Uh. It 0:51:52.840 --> 0:51:57.480 really has everything spared no expense. Yeah, all right, So 0:51:57.520 --> 0:51:59.360 obviously we'd love to hear from everyone out there. I 0:51:59.360 --> 0:52:01.040 also know that we have you know, we have plenty 0:52:01.080 --> 0:52:05.080 of listeners who live in New Zealand and who have 0:52:05.120 --> 0:52:07.720 traveled to New Zealand or have some sort of roots 0:52:07.760 --> 0:52:10.719 or connection to New Zealand. We would love to hear 0:52:10.760 --> 0:52:13.320 from you about this topic. What are your thoughts about 0:52:13.520 --> 0:52:16.120 the moa uh and what you have to add to 0:52:16.160 --> 0:52:19.640 our discussion here. What are your thoughts about being called Kiwi's? 0:52:20.040 --> 0:52:22.040 Oh yeah, yeah, I would. I would love to hear 0:52:22.080 --> 0:52:25.439 from actual uh New Zealand residents on the matter. Would 0:52:25.480 --> 0:52:33.080 they rather be called MOA's Mm hmm, Sorry, I mean 0:52:33.120 --> 0:52:36.080 both of the names of birds, so I don't know. 0:52:36.640 --> 0:52:38.200 In the meantime, if you want to check out other 0:52:38.200 --> 0:52:40.239 episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, you know where 0:52:40.239 --> 0:52:43.440 to find them. Wherever you get your podcasts and wherever 0:52:43.480 --> 0:52:47.959 that happens to be make sure you rate, review, and subscribe. 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