Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.
Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault for a classic episode
Speaker 1: of the show. This originally aired on March. It's part
Speaker 1: two of our series about the Moa. That's right. The
Speaker 1: first one was more about the Wingless Wonders themselves themselves,
Speaker 1: and this is more about, you know, the fall of
Speaker 1: the Moa, the twilight of the Moa, their extinction and
Speaker 1: what we know about how we can you know, put together, uh,
Speaker 1: their final days, where they went, and we'll even touch
Speaker 1: on the question of what if we could bring them back. Hi, everybody,
Speaker 1: it's Seth the producer of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: I'm here in March to just pop on a quick
Speaker 1: note into this episode saying, Hey, it's March, and you
Speaker 1: know what that means. We're all recording from our own homes,
Speaker 1: all separate and all social distancing, so that means the
Speaker 1: sound quality of this one is a little strange. But
Speaker 1: just to let you know, each time we've been doing
Speaker 1: these home recordings, they've been getting better and better and better.
Speaker 1: So I can guarantee you that next one is going
Speaker 1: to sound a little better than this and the next one,
Speaker 1: and after that's going to sound a little bit better
Speaker 1: than that one, etcetera, etcetera. So just so you know,
Speaker 1: this is all temporary and we'll get back to our
Speaker 1: regular episodes as soon as we can sound quality wise.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, and enjoy the show. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of My Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back. We're
Speaker 1: still social distancing now. There must have been a weird
Speaker 1: back and forth year because Thursday of last week's episode
Speaker 1: we were broadcasting from our closet and our laundry room, right,
Speaker 1: but then Tuesday of this week's episode. I think that
Speaker 1: was recorded in the studio before we came home for
Speaker 1: the Great Retreat, that's right. And also we record our
Speaker 1: vault episode intros about a month out, so people might
Speaker 1: have noticed that as well. But this episode, part two
Speaker 1: of our Look at the Moa, Twilight of the MOA
Speaker 1: we're calling it. This episode is recorded from our respective
Speaker 1: closets in our homes. You're actually in a closet now,
Speaker 1: as opposed to your your laundry roomness. That correct, that's true.
Speaker 1: I decided to become a monster in the closet. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I've got so I've got the same talisman's that
Speaker 1: I had last time in order to bring me good
Speaker 1: luck and watch over me while making this recording. I've
Speaker 1: got tom Atkins from Night of the Creeps. I've got
Speaker 1: my thor Christ. But this time I also brought in
Speaker 1: an extremely tasteful novelty mug that my wife found an
Speaker 1: East Tennessee thrift store. Which is great because I cannot
Speaker 1: bring this mug to the office. I am sure I
Speaker 1: haven't get in trouble for that. Yeah, the home office
Speaker 1: brings with it certain advantages, doesn't it? For For me?
Speaker 1: I looked around the house. I would have loved to
Speaker 1: have had a toy of a moa, like a little
Speaker 1: plastic like Schleck moa, but sadly we do not have one,
Speaker 1: and it would be irresponsible for me to even try
Speaker 1: and mail order one at the moment. So you have
Speaker 1: a plastic Shrek, no I have. I do have a
Speaker 1: plastic terror birds. So it's not accurate, but it's it
Speaker 1: is still an extinct flightless bird. Uh. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: set it right here next to my microphone and it
Speaker 1: will it will serve as my mascot. Well mayor pocket
Speaker 1: sized titles watch over us. So, so where do we
Speaker 1: leave off last time? All right? So in our last episode,
Speaker 1: and if you didn't listen to it, do go back
Speaker 1: and listen to that episode before this one. In it,
Speaker 1: we discussed the evolution of flightless birds and the rise
Speaker 1: of the moa, nine species of large flightless birds that
Speaker 1: evolved as the dominant vertebrates on the isolated islands of
Speaker 1: what he's currently known as New Zealand. But the rule
Speaker 1: of the moa did not last forever because Homo sapiens arrived,
Speaker 1: and this episode will deal with the subsequent extinction of
Speaker 1: the moa because you know what they say, more humans
Speaker 1: moa problems. I wondered how you were going to work
Speaker 1: that in, saying, you know, I had to get to
Speaker 1: it eventually. Yeah, yeah, that's true for I'd say every
Speaker 1: organism except us, right, except maybe like Hathogen's that that
Speaker 1: prey upon us. Right, Yeah, it's certainly when we're dealing
Speaker 1: with with megafauna um creatures of that nature, there's this
Speaker 1: is a tale of doom whenever humans enter the equation,
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll point out some other examples of that
Speaker 1: as we'd move along. No, wait a minute, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of some more exceptions. We've got rats too. I mean
Speaker 1: rats were great for them, and rats will come up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so yeah, a few exceptions there. But you don't
Speaker 1: want to be a moa when humans show up. Right,
Speaker 1: So the rule of the moa was lengthy. They evolved
Speaker 1: into the into these dominant positions in New Zealand, but
Speaker 1: as we discussed on the show before, it can be
Speaker 1: precarious at the top, certainly for apex predators, but also
Speaker 1: from massive dominant herbivores, especially when something changes. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we also talked about this in our episode. I believe
Speaker 1: it was on the Leviattan or the Leviathan genus of
Speaker 1: like the the ancient predatory sperm whale. That's right, yes,
Speaker 1: where it's easy to look at a creature like that,
Speaker 1: or a creature like hosts eagle, which we discussed in
Speaker 1: the last episode, to look at these creatures and think, well,
Speaker 1: that's there's no taking that down. That's that's that's a
Speaker 1: dominant organism. But it is, uh, you know, it is
Speaker 1: the ruler. But it is it is it's thrown rest
Speaker 1: upon a precarious pyramid of bones. Yeah, heavy lies the
Speaker 1: crown exactly. So Yeah, when something changes, it can topple
Speaker 1: everything over. And in the thirteenth century, see I've seen
Speaker 1: twelve a d c. As a potential date, a major
Speaker 1: change arrived on the shores of New Zealand. And that
Speaker 1: change came in the form of Homo sapiens. Uh. The
Speaker 1: long world changing wave of human migration had only made
Speaker 1: its way to you know, near the bottom of the world,
Speaker 1: to this nation of the birds, and this would have
Speaker 1: been what would come to be known as the Mallory. Uh.
Speaker 1: These were uh, these settlers were a Polynesian people who
Speaker 1: arrived in several waves uh in what is now New Zealand.
Speaker 1: This is one of the later regions of planet Earth
Speaker 1: to be settled by humans. Absolutely like these were some
Speaker 1: of the last in true pioneers heading into parts of
Speaker 1: the world, not not only parts of the world that
Speaker 1: they had not been to before, but where no human
Speaker 1: had gone before. Um. You know, the European colonists and
Speaker 1: explorers would only come in the wake of these true pioneers. Now,
Speaker 1: Polynesian culture itself is endlessly fascinating, and I'd love to
Speaker 1: come back and deal with some of the related topics
Speaker 1: on the show, such as their amazing navigational abilities or
Speaker 1: the use of aquaculture in in the Lion Islands. But
Speaker 1: essentially we're talking about a long curving leg of human
Speaker 1: expansion that extends from China through the Philippines, New Guinea,
Speaker 1: the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tahiti, uh Hawaii, Eastern Island, and
Speaker 1: other islands in this broad stretch of the ocean. Again,
Speaker 1: they were the Polynesians were the last true pioneers of
Speaker 1: human expansion, and Polynesian expansion took place over the course
Speaker 1: of thousands of years as well, and the culture evolved
Speaker 1: along the way it takes on ends up taking on
Speaker 1: different forms in the locations where they land, often due
Speaker 1: to resulting isolation, uh, you know, because these are in
Speaker 1: many cases very far flung islands and and and sometimes
Speaker 1: we're talking about, you know, centuries and centuries between people
Speaker 1: making it to one island versus another. So New Zealand
Speaker 1: was discovered and colonized very late in human expansion, and
Speaker 1: when the archaic Mallory arrived, they encountered the Moa Following
Speaker 1: this encounter, the nine species of moa would scarcely last
Speaker 1: more than another century, and they were extinct by fourteen five.
Speaker 1: So let's get into what we're mainly going to discuss
Speaker 1: in this episode. This this collision between Homo sapiens and moa,
Speaker 1: And probably the best place to start there is by
Speaker 1: talking about just the word moa. Where does it come from?
Speaker 1: I was reading in Prodigious Birds, MOA's and Moa Hunting
Speaker 1: in New Zealand by Athol Anderson, and the author shares
Speaker 1: that the earliest recorded use of the word moa comes
Speaker 1: via Cornish missionary William Colenso who in eighty eight heard
Speaker 1: that some mallory described the moa as a large bird,
Speaker 1: others as a large bird with a face like that
Speaker 1: of a man, lived in a mountain cavern that was
Speaker 1: guarded by two giant lizards. This in other tales described
Speaker 1: the residents of Mount uh Taranaki or Mount Egmont's described
Speaker 1: the very strange residents that live there, often taking the
Speaker 1: form of abnormal birds or lizards, sometimes with human qualities.
Speaker 1: And this really lines up with what we've talked about
Speaker 1: on the show before about sacred mountains and holy mountains
Speaker 1: and the various myths that people accumulate regarding the sorts
Speaker 1: of things you would find there, in the sorts of
Speaker 1: creatures that would populate those uh, those mysterious cliffs up there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a couple of ways of looking at that.
Speaker 1: In our episode on the Sacred Mountains, I guess we
Speaker 1: did two of those episodes. I mean, one thing is
Speaker 1: we talked about the idea that if you get really
Speaker 1: really high up there, there's some evidence that people sometimes start,
Speaker 1: you know, experiencing psychosis or hallucinations. Um, so, like that
Speaker 1: could be a source of some supernatural beliefs in some cases.
Speaker 1: But but I'd say probably the more prevalent issue is
Speaker 1: just that the top of the mountain is inaccessible, so
Speaker 1: it is naturally a place to put your mythical creatures
Speaker 1: at home in You know that that is where they
Speaker 1: hide absolutely now I know it. As some people were
Speaker 1: probably wondering, here is eighty eight. That sounds kind of
Speaker 1: late for the earliest recorded use of the word moa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so how long would the species have been extinct before
Speaker 1: the word appears in writing? Yeah? Yeah, it's uh, it
Speaker 1: seems a little confusing at first, right, because first contact
Speaker 1: between Europeans and Maori occurred December eighteen, sixteen forty two,
Speaker 1: with Able Tasman's Dutch East India Company expedition. Now specifically,
Speaker 1: Europeans had been asking the Mallory about other giant creatures
Speaker 1: recorded in their traditions since the seventeen seventies. In the
Speaker 1: near two centuries after, there was certainly communication and exchange
Speaker 1: between Europeans and Mallory, in addition to, of course colonial subjucation.
Speaker 1: Uh Anderson discusses this uh in his book, and it
Speaker 1: points out that earlier references to the moa might either
Speaker 1: have not been recognized or not associated with the term
Speaker 1: moa self, so you know, descriptions of the animal might
Speaker 1: not have been immediately tied with moa. For instance, there
Speaker 1: were accounts of spirits covered in hair in the form
Speaker 1: of birds, and there was talk of how a giant
Speaker 1: kiwi lived in the mountains. Uh and will again remind
Speaker 1: everyone that the kiwi and the moa are not actually
Speaker 1: all that related. But this UH, this sort of discovery
Speaker 1: would have stemmed from Earth, from general European interests in
Speaker 1: the extent kiwi, so you know, they might have been
Speaker 1: asking about the kiwi and they would have been heard
Speaker 1: about myths of giant birds that are in some way
Speaker 1: like a kiwi. That is interesting, Yeah, the idea that
Speaker 1: the concept could persist over time, especially if you have
Speaker 1: like something that's morphologically very similar but just like much
Speaker 1: smaller to refer to. Right. And in all of this,
Speaker 1: again we're just we're discussing like European knowledge all of
Speaker 1: the Moa, which is ultimately tied to European knowledge edge
Speaker 1: and understanding of the Mallory, which of course is is
Speaker 1: a strained relationship, you know, to say the least, because
Speaker 1: again you're talking about the the indigenous people, the Maori,
Speaker 1: and you're talking about the the colonial power that then
Speaker 1: arrives on their shore in the form of the Europeans.
Speaker 1: Anderson also points out that a major factor might be
Speaker 1: that the Mallory conceptionalize the moa as not being true
Speaker 1: birds but is just being is being bird like, which
Speaker 1: Nights had a little confusing. But then I think back
Speaker 1: to just some of the weird things about the moa,
Speaker 1: you know, like they had the thing that the fact
Speaker 1: that they had no wings, not even vestigial wings. They
Speaker 1: were just two limbed organisms. Um, you can see why
Speaker 1: they might defy easy categorization. Likewise, they're just the size
Speaker 1: of the larger species. Well, sure, I mean when we
Speaker 1: use the term bird now, I think like you and
Speaker 1: I are going to be referring to an evolutionary clade,
Speaker 1: uh that is defined by evolutionary relationships. But if you're
Speaker 1: just categorizing animals that you see in the world, what
Speaker 1: are the bases on which you form your categories? Like
Speaker 1: a bird might well be understood as something that flies.
Speaker 1: So if there's something that, look, this is kind of
Speaker 1: like a bird, and that it has a beak and
Speaker 1: all that, but it doesn't fly, it doesn't meet your
Speaker 1: necessary criteria for what makes something a bird exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so the bones of the moa were apparently not
Speaker 1: described by the Mallory as bird bones, but they were
Speaker 1: described as moa bones. So here's the here's a quote
Speaker 1: from from Anderson on all of this quote, it is
Speaker 1: very difficult to document this point, but the separation of
Speaker 1: dangerous mythological moa from large birds used as food and
Speaker 1: easily hunted to extinction in Pollock's description, and the lack
Speaker 1: of any comparable prosaic tradition about MOA's in most of
Speaker 1: the moa stories collected by missionaries seem suggestive. Certainly, it
Speaker 1: was the very lack of an unequivocal association between the
Speaker 1: term moa and any straightforward account of large birds hunted
Speaker 1: and eaten by maories which formed the main flaw exploited
Speaker 1: throughout the long debate about what, if anything malories had
Speaker 1: known about the dinner riforms. Oh, and the dinner if
Speaker 1: the forms that refers to the group to which the
Speaker 1: moa belong, right, Yes, so, well, we'll ponder this dangerous
Speaker 1: versus easy to drive to extinction question as we perceive,
Speaker 1: because I'm not entirely convinced this species can't be both
Speaker 1: of these things. You know, certainly when humans and the
Speaker 1: humans in question have tools, tactics, and invasive species on
Speaker 1: their side. Oh sure. I mean some of the most
Speaker 1: dangerous creatures in a one on one context are also
Speaker 1: some of the easiest to drive extinct. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you just wanted to drive an animal extinct, what would
Speaker 1: be like the easiest ones to do? Probably like large carnivores,
Speaker 1: because there's already so few of them. Of course, the
Speaker 1: moa were not carnivores like this, But yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: like large animals generally being fewer in number because of
Speaker 1: their energy requirements within the environment, would seem to be
Speaker 1: easier to drive to extinction than if you were trying
Speaker 1: to exterminate something that's very easy to kill like rats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again I think they the evidence seems to indicate
Speaker 1: they would have been dangerous creatures because these were big animals.
Speaker 1: Even the little bush moa was four and a half
Speaker 1: feet tall. Now that's smaller than an adult southern castlewary,
Speaker 1: which is generally five to six feet taller one and
Speaker 1: a half to one point eight meters, But if you
Speaker 1: see one, you would not mess with it, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: They're they're fierce creatures. So it seems like the larger
Speaker 1: species of moa especially would certainly be in a position
Speaker 1: to put the hurt on an aggressor and do so
Speaker 1: in a way that's in keeping with what we see
Speaker 1: in in extant rack eye species. But does that mean
Speaker 1: they were a match for the humans that arrived on
Speaker 1: their shores. No, because the archaic nowory were a very
Speaker 1: skilled and advanced people. They arrived in waves from Hawaiki.
Speaker 1: This is a mythical land that is usually identified as
Speaker 1: to Hiti by historians. And they were of course skilled
Speaker 1: sailors that arrived on wooden vessels capable of traversing great
Speaker 1: distances at sea. For instance, the distance between Tahiti and
Speaker 1: New Zealand is two thousand, nine hundred and fifty miles
Speaker 1: or four thousand, seven hundred forty seven kilometers. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a long way to go, even if you know
Speaker 1: exactly where you're going. But here we're talking about like
Speaker 1: the settlement of a new, previously unknown island, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I just really want to drive home. Like
Speaker 1: the skilled nature of these Homo sapiens that arrived um,
Speaker 1: and what's more, they brought with him both human cunning
Speaker 1: and human tool use. They were masters of the club
Speaker 1: and the spear especially. They also brought with them other animals,
Speaker 1: including a breed of domesticated Polynesian dog known as the curry, which,
Speaker 1: as with other Polynesian dogs, did not bark. But apparently
Speaker 1: how they also brought with them, quite by accident, the kiori,
Speaker 1: the an Asian rat um. Now, the curi is still
Speaker 1: a pest species in New Zealand because, as we know,
Speaker 1: once rats become established anywhere, they're very difficult to get
Speaker 1: rid of. The curry dog, on the other hand, has
Speaker 1: been extinct since the arrival of Europeans, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about that species in a minute. And they also
Speaker 1: brought with them um plants as well, such as the
Speaker 1: sweet potato. Well way, does there any thinking that the
Speaker 1: sweet potato could be involved in driving them OA extinct
Speaker 1: or not? I have not read anything to suggest that,
Speaker 1: but I mean that kind of that sort of thing
Speaker 1: is certainly possible, right and generally speaking, when you have
Speaker 1: humans from a distant land show up and introduce into
Speaker 1: the ecosystem not only their destructive selves, but also invasive organisms,
Speaker 1: uh there's you know, you're just really up ending the
Speaker 1: croc pie. You know, you're really changing the chemistry of
Speaker 1: the whole ecosystem around potentially. Oh yeah, well, actually, now
Speaker 1: that I think about it, I could totally see how
Speaker 1: I'm not saying this is the case here, but I
Speaker 1: could totally see how something like this wheat potato could
Speaker 1: drive a native species extinct. Because humans come, they bring
Speaker 1: with them their crop staples. In order to plant those crops,
Speaker 1: they have to, uh to establish agricultural zones that destroy
Speaker 1: natural ecosystem. So yeah, I could see it. Again, not
Speaker 1: saying we know that happened here right. All right, On
Speaker 1: that note, let's take a quick break, and when we
Speaker 1: come back, we will continue to discuss the collision between
Speaker 1: Homo sapiens and the Mola. Thank alright, we're back. So
Speaker 1: what do you need as fresh colonists in a world
Speaker 1: like New Zealand. Well, let's see classic hierarchy of needs.
Speaker 1: I'd say first you need you need fresh water, food,
Speaker 1: and shelter probably right, Oh yeah, absolutely, Am I on
Speaker 1: the right track here? Yes? Yes, another need that I
Speaker 1: I didn't instantly think of. And part of this is
Speaker 1: probably because I've never been to New Zealand myself, so
Speaker 1: I don't have like the bodily experience of this. But
Speaker 1: New Zealand can be quite cold, so you know you're
Speaker 1: you're arriving in an new land, but also a land
Speaker 1: where the temperature has dipped down a bit more. Uh
Speaker 1: So the the archaic mallory. Uh they were fortunate and
Speaker 1: they did bring within the couri dogs, which helps solve
Speaker 1: some of these issues. Because the creatures had many utalitarian uses.
Speaker 1: They could be eaten, their pelt could be made into clothing,
Speaker 1: and other parts of its body could be used for
Speaker 1: bits of clothing and tool use and so forth. But
Speaker 1: beyond that, you know, when they started exploring this new world,
Speaker 1: they very quickly would have discovered the moa, and the
Speaker 1: moa would be just a gift of resources to these people.
Speaker 1: Now here's a question that researchers and historians have have
Speaker 1: pondered over the years. So what sort of moa population
Speaker 1: did the archaic Mallory encounter. It's long been widely accepted that,
Speaker 1: you know, the newly arrived humans at least played a
Speaker 1: role in the extinction of the moa. But there there
Speaker 1: there's been some disagreement in the past over to what extent.
Speaker 1: For example, did the archaic Mallory encounter thriving populations of
Speaker 1: moa across much of the islands, or did they encounter
Speaker 1: dwindling populations of moa that were restricted to certain areas,
Speaker 1: or did they find moa populations that were already in
Speaker 1: severe decline. And of course, depending on the answer, it
Speaker 1: paints a different picture of the extent of Maori moa
Speaker 1: hunting and the impact of their arrival. You know, some
Speaker 1: could argue that well, in perhaps climate change, volcanic eruptions,
Speaker 1: and or disease had already impacted moa populations, and humans
Speaker 1: were just the final straw. So the moa certainly went
Speaker 1: extinct over the next century or so. You know, there's
Speaker 1: no moa hiding in the wilds of New Zealand, sadly,
Speaker 1: no matter what anybody might try and tell you. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't until the nineteenth century the Europeans discovered evidence
Speaker 1: of the great birds, consisting of charred skeletons, gizzard stones,
Speaker 1: and eggshells. They certainly told the tale of their demise.
Speaker 1: DNA evidence, however, does shine light on the question of
Speaker 1: pre maori moa populations. As Rachel Newer wrote in The
Speaker 1: New York Times back in quote Morton Eric Allentoft, the
Speaker 1: researcher the University of Copenhagen and colleagues analyzed DNA from
Speaker 1: two D one moas collected from museums and new excavations
Speaker 1: and estimated the age of these specimens using radio carbon dating.
Speaker 1: They found that in the millenniums before humans arrived in
Speaker 1: New Zealand, the moa displayed none of the genetic bottlenecking
Speaker 1: indicative of a declining population. So there's no genetic evidence
Speaker 1: of any of a decline in the moa during the
Speaker 1: five thousand years prior to their rapid extinction. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: via the human arrival. Okay, so what does that tell us? Well,
Speaker 1: that leaves us with this version of the story. The
Speaker 1: archaic Mallory arrived on the shores of a new land
Speaker 1: where strange, often gigantic birds were roaming around, and through
Speaker 1: the use of spears and snares and hunting dogs and
Speaker 1: the human cunning, they were able to bring the birds
Speaker 1: down and process their kills with the same sort of
Speaker 1: efficiency we see, you know, with the curios. It's also
Speaker 1: possible that the moa had no natural fear of humans
Speaker 1: as well, which would have just made them even more
Speaker 1: susceptible to this kind of harvesting. Well, yeah, i'd imagine
Speaker 1: that's possible, especially without um, without large mammalian predators on
Speaker 1: the island of New Zealand, like they're only real predator
Speaker 1: would have been the hostile eagle, right, which they're adapted
Speaker 1: to a landscape in which the only thing to worry
Speaker 1: about comes down at you from above. Who knows what
Speaker 1: they would have done if, like, you know, a bipedal
Speaker 1: hommaid walks up to them in a group. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and and plus their extinction didn't just come via the
Speaker 1: hunting of grown adult MOA's because they're they're large, eggs
Speaker 1: were certainly sought after foods as well. We see that
Speaker 1: from some of the you know, the evidence of you know,
Speaker 1: they're finding egg shells and evidence of the eggs having
Speaker 1: been consumed. And since the moa produced just one or
Speaker 1: two eggs, the harvesting of their eggs would have further
Speaker 1: spelled doom for nine species of moa. For example, the
Speaker 1: I believe this is a co Cora egg, the largest
Speaker 1: moa egg ever uncovered, would have weighed nine pounds when fresh. Wow.
Speaker 1: To put that in perspective, an ostrich egg typically weighs
Speaker 1: one point four kilograms or three point one pounds, which
Speaker 1: is more than twenty times the weight of a chicken egg.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about you know, two people, uh that
Speaker 1: have arrived on these islands, you know, struggling for existence
Speaker 1: like that. That's a huge bounty of resources in that egg.
Speaker 1: Do you ever see anybody eat an ostrich egg? I
Speaker 1: feel like I have before in the past, but I haven't.
Speaker 1: It's not the kind of thing I've seen on a
Speaker 1: menu recently. It did not come highly recommended to me.
Speaker 1: Apparently in addition to being very large, it's gott a
Speaker 1: it's got a tough shell, I guess as you might imagine.
Speaker 1: You know, it can't just have like an egg shell
Speaker 1: thick like a chicken egg shell thickness shell. Uh, that's
Speaker 1: a little bit difficult to get into. But then once
Speaker 1: you do get into it, tremendous nutritional resources. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that that that's a one egg omelet for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So basically the situation is the maori ended up hunting
Speaker 1: and harvesting the moa faster than the moa could reproduce,
Speaker 1: and as the bounty of moa flesh and bone dwindled,
Speaker 1: the moa hunting Maori diversified and came to depend on fishing,
Speaker 1: fouling uh in the gathering of mollusks, etcetera. And this
Speaker 1: led to the establishment of more permanent and semi permanent settlements.
Speaker 1: So then it looks like it really was us. It
Speaker 1: was people that drove the moa extinct. Oh yes, I
Speaker 1: think at this point, especially with the genetic evidence, that's
Speaker 1: that's what without question. Now it is reported in why
Speaker 1: did New Zealand's moas Go Extinct? By Virginia Morrell Morton Allentoft,
Speaker 1: who mentioned earlier evolutionary biologists of the University of Copenhagen,
Speaker 1: remarked that the idea may run counter to some ideas
Speaker 1: that we tend to have about indigenous people. We often
Speaker 1: think of them, uh, you know, living in equilibrium with nature.
Speaker 1: But the Maori end up killing and eating the moa
Speaker 1: at every stage of the creature's life. So alan Toft
Speaker 1: contends that this sort of harmony with nature that we
Speaker 1: sometimes envisioned ultimately rarely exists within human beings, and that
Speaker 1: any arriving humans would have extinguished the moa the same way.
Speaker 1: And certainly we see other such extinctions, um, you know,
Speaker 1: including the distinctions of large flightless birds due to the
Speaker 1: arrival of humans. So again, don't think less of the
Speaker 1: Maori for the extinction of the moa. Uh. These great
Speaker 1: birds were always on a collision course with humans, and
Speaker 1: if by some miracle the Polynesians had never found New Zealand,
Speaker 1: the Europeans would have eradicated the moa on their own.
Speaker 1: So again, it's an old story. Humans arrive somewhere, mega
Speaker 1: fauna is hunted into extinction. We see that with the mammoths.
Speaker 1: We see that with cave bears, giant kangaroos, etcetera. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it seems like a ubiquitous picture of human
Speaker 1: development and geographical spread, like it is absolutely nothing unique
Speaker 1: about whatever individual culture reached this megafaunt of first. Now,
Speaker 1: I think one of the really fascinating questions in all
Speaker 1: of this is beyond the questions of like Europeans figuring
Speaker 1: out what the Mallory thought about the moa, is just
Speaker 1: a question of like, what how does that impact a people?
Speaker 1: You know, to to have come to this, to come
Speaker 1: to New Zealand to be essentially become the Mallory. And
Speaker 1: in the process of becoming the Mallory, you go through
Speaker 1: this period of moa hunting Mallory in which you have
Speaker 1: this you know, this bounty of these these creatures too
Speaker 1: to to hunt and feed on, and then they're gone.
Speaker 1: Then you have to diversify and change the way you live,
Speaker 1: Like what is the memory of that like in a people.
Speaker 1: I found a fascinating article about this published on the Conversation.
Speaker 1: It's by conservation biologist Priscilla Way, University of what Kat
Speaker 1: Associate Professor him A Wanga and Professor of computational biology
Speaker 1: Murray Cox. It was published in two thousand and eighteen
Speaker 1: in its title Dead as the Moa oral traditions show
Speaker 1: that early Maori recognized extinction interesting. So the team of
Speaker 1: researchers here, which includes a conservation biologist, a linguist, bioinformationist,
Speaker 1: and experts in Maori culture, they stressed that tracing the
Speaker 1: centuries old extinctions is difficult, but that through the collaborative
Speaker 1: analysis of ancestral sayings traditional ancestral sayings in Maori culture,
Speaker 1: they found that early Maori certainly paid attention to the
Speaker 1: state of flora and fauna in their environment, and that
Speaker 1: they recognized the extinction of the moa. But despite knowing
Speaker 1: roughly when and who you know regarding the more extinction,
Speaker 1: we don't really know a lot about how the Maori
Speaker 1: felt about and how they processed this event, which again
Speaker 1: would have been a major event in their lives. This
Speaker 1: was the destruction of an important food source as well
Speaker 1: as a source of various tools and parts. Uh. Some
Speaker 1: of this remains in the Maori oral traditions, specifically in
Speaker 1: these various ancestral sayings. So the researchers here they point
Speaker 1: out that of these ancestral sayings. Uh, the ones that
Speaker 1: refer to birds anyway, A disproportionate number of them refer
Speaker 1: to the Moa, to their appearance, to their into their nature,
Speaker 1: and their uses to humans. All right, so what would
Speaker 1: these things go like in translation? Well, yeah, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna share the translations. So they do. They include the
Speaker 1: original Maori versions in this article, so encourage anyone to
Speaker 1: it's interested to check that out. But like, one of
Speaker 1: them is lost as the Moa was lost. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of like an expression like dead as a doornail,
Speaker 1: like yeah, or hidden as the Moa hit. And then
Speaker 1: here's another one. The people will disappear like the Moa.
Speaker 1: And this this one's really haunting because they point out
Speaker 1: that as the Europeans arrived, the Maori compared their plight
Speaker 1: to that of the Moa. Wow. So here's a quote
Speaker 1: Maori recalled the Moa after Europeans arrived, too malory. We're
Speaker 1: suffering badly from diseases and deprivation. In the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: it was as though the Maori world was being felled
Speaker 1: along with the forests. There was a very real fear
Speaker 1: among both Maori and Europeans that Maori people and culture
Speaker 1: would also disappear, just like the moa wow, that is haunting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm still thinking about these expressions. I was trying to
Speaker 1: think of a point of comparison. Of course, one is
Speaker 1: uh is like gone the way of the dinosaurs uh,
Speaker 1: an expression in English. Though, of course, our knowledge of
Speaker 1: where the dinosaurs went does not come from cultural memory.
Speaker 1: It comes from like something we learned through science. I
Speaker 1: guess you could maybe say gone the way of the dodos.
Speaker 1: Some people say that that. Yeah, though I guess when
Speaker 1: people say that, they tendn't they tend not to do
Speaker 1: it with any accepted role in the in the extinction,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I feel like that's one of the
Speaker 1: aspects here worth pondering is that, you know, the Mallory
Speaker 1: would have have realized that their ancestors played this role
Speaker 1: in the extinction. Now that's not to say that, you know,
Speaker 1: did it on purpose. Obviously, there's a there's a huge
Speaker 1: difference between you know, say, setting out to cause an
Speaker 1: extinction and I don't. You know, obviously they wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to have to have done that, because these creatures were
Speaker 1: a source of of of of vast resources to them.
Speaker 1: But you know, they were you know, ultimately it was
Speaker 1: it was not something that were capable of exerting control over,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, like it's it's really has always
Speaker 1: been a human struggle to figure out to what extent
Speaker 1: we can exploit the natural world without damaging it beyond control.
Speaker 1: And clearly like that is something that is still a
Speaker 1: major stumbling block to human beings. We still mishandle that
Speaker 1: same equation on a on a daily basis. All Right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take one more break, but when we come back,
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to move beyond the extinction of
Speaker 1: the moa and ponder the question, well, could we bring
Speaker 1: the moa back? Than alright, we're back a dinosaur story?
Speaker 1: Is that a movie? We're back a dinosaur story? You
Speaker 1: don't know that movie? I don't know that. I do.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I think I rented that when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. Let's see when did that come out? Based
Speaker 1: seven book? Oh yeah, I rented that one when I
Speaker 1: was a kid. That was that was a Turtles video
Speaker 1: find that I brought home, avenge that from the from
Speaker 1: the bone heap, and I don't think it was good.
Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't seen it since I was a child.
Speaker 1: It does not seem like one of the animated dinosaur
Speaker 1: movies that would hold up best. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: looking it up. And this voicecast. You got John Goodman,
Speaker 1: you got Jay Leno, Walter Cronkite. I think Walter Cronkite
Speaker 1: plays like a mad scientist who brings dinosaurs through a
Speaker 1: time portal or something and puts him into New York
Speaker 1: in the in the nineties. And Julia Child is in
Speaker 1: this really yeah, does she play one of the dinosaurs. No, sadly,
Speaker 1: she plays a worker at the Museum of Natural History. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe that would be uh interesting to
Speaker 1: go back and excavate at some point. But it looks great.
Speaker 1: It has four directors, a mark of quality. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we're talking about the possible resurrection of the moa. Now,
Speaker 1: there was a pretty good article I was reading about
Speaker 1: this on stat by the science writer Sharon Begley from
Speaker 1: February seven, uh and concerned the possible d extinction of
Speaker 1: one species of moa. Of course, if you're not familiar
Speaker 1: with the concept of d extinction, it has come up
Speaker 1: on the show before, but you can probably figure it
Speaker 1: out from the name, right It's also known as a
Speaker 1: resurrection biology. It refers to the process of bringing an
Speaker 1: extinct species back to life. The pop culture example that
Speaker 1: everybody knows is Jurassic Park. Now, what did they do
Speaker 1: In Jurassic Park? They found ancient deposits of amber or
Speaker 1: fossilized tree sap in which dinosaur era mosquitoes had been
Speaker 1: trapped when the sap was still soft, and then the
Speaker 1: sap hardened over time and then fossilized in the ground.
Speaker 1: Presumably the the mosquitoes in the sap were trapped with
Speaker 1: their bellies full of dinosaur blood that they had just
Speaker 1: feasted on. And so the scientists in the book, in
Speaker 1: the movie Jurassic Park, they extract the preserved dinosaur blood,
Speaker 1: they sequence it out, they get mr DNA from the
Speaker 1: from the insect bellies, and then they used that blood
Speaker 1: and the DNA sequenced from it to clone dinosaurs. It was,
Speaker 1: of course, I would say, a very ingenious plot device,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately it looks like it probably would not work
Speaker 1: in reality. What if? What if? The reason it didn't work, though,
Speaker 1: was that it turns out the mosquitoes had not consumed
Speaker 1: the blood of dinosaurs, but he consumed the blood of
Speaker 1: the Time Travelers from Ray Bradberry Sound of thunder Man.
Speaker 1: What what were the chances that would be a very
Speaker 1: good closed time travel loop? What? What do you like
Speaker 1: better the time travel movies where you go back and
Speaker 1: actually change the past, or the ones where you go
Speaker 1: back and it proves to be a closed loop where
Speaker 1: you just cause whatever present already happened. Oh, you have
Speaker 1: to go back and forth between the two. You know.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's the only way it really works.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like it's the sour in the suite
Speaker 1: with your time travel. But let's bring things back to
Speaker 1: Jurassic Park. Why didn't it work? Okay, so basically there
Speaker 1: are several reasons, but they all come down to time. Now.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons is not in fact that you
Speaker 1: couldn't discover a mosquito with prehistoric blood and it's guts
Speaker 1: that uh. But believe it or not, paleontologists actually have
Speaker 1: discovered preserved insects full of the remains of not not intact,
Speaker 1: but the remains of prehistoric blood in fossil beds. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is a slight tangent. But I didn't already
Speaker 1: know this, and I was amazed by what I was
Speaker 1: reading here, so there's one prominent example I could find.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is still the only major
Speaker 1: example known today, but it was described in a research
Speaker 1: article published in P and A s in called hemoglobin
Speaker 1: derived porphyrins preserved in a Middle Eocene blood engorged mosquito,
Speaker 1: and it was by Daily Greenwall to Julia S. Garreva,
Speaker 1: Sandra M. Celia Strom, tim Rose, and Ralph E. Harback,
Speaker 1: and the discovery was also written up by Ed Young
Speaker 1: in a short news item for the journal Nature on
Speaker 1: October four. So the researchers here were examining a total
Speaker 1: of thirty six mosquito specimens from a shale deposit known
Speaker 1: as the Coal Creek member of the kischen In formation
Speaker 1: in northwestern Montana, and the layer from which they were
Speaker 1: recovered is estimated to be about forty six million years old.
Speaker 1: So this collection of fossilized mosquitoes included two previously unknown
Speaker 1: species of the genus Lisda. One was cool Assada kischen
Speaker 1: in and one was cool Asda lemniscata. But one of
Speaker 1: the mosquitoes from this boniard was truly special and you
Speaker 1: can look up images if you want on the Internet.
Speaker 1: In the words of the researchers, the image of this
Speaker 1: specimen was quote obviously that of a female blood engorged
Speaker 1: mosquito with non plumos antennae and a very dark red
Speaker 1: black distended abdomen compared with the non hematophagus male. Uh
Speaker 1: so there's a new word for your vampire fiction. By
Speaker 1: the way, him at aphagus means eats blood or drinks blood.
Speaker 1: Non hematophagus would mean does not drink blood like the
Speaker 1: male mosquitoes. The male mosquito doesn't drink blood. Obviously, if
Speaker 1: your gut is busting with blood like this, uh, this
Speaker 1: female mosquito here, you are him atophagus. But but ed
Speaker 1: Young writes in his summary that prior to this discovery,
Speaker 1: paleontologists had found fossils of blood sucking insects, but we
Speaker 1: always had to yes what these insects were feeding on
Speaker 1: through kind of indirect cues, like preserved evidence of blood
Speaker 1: borne parasites contained in their digestive systems. This fossil find
Speaker 1: was totally different because it contained direct molecular evidence of
Speaker 1: blood feeding within the insects gut, specifically lots of iron
Speaker 1: and organic compounds called porphyrans, which are constituents of hemoglobin,
Speaker 1: that's the protein responsible for transporting oxygen and blood uh.
Speaker 1: And the find was also extremely unlikely. In the words
Speaker 1: of the lead author, Dale Greenwalt quote, the abdomen of
Speaker 1: a blood engorged mosquito is like a balloon ready to burst.
Speaker 1: It is very fragile. The chances that it wouldn't have
Speaker 1: disintegrated prior to fossilization were infinitesimally small. And it's amazing
Speaker 1: because that's on top of the already minuscule chances of
Speaker 1: any animal being fossilized in the first place. I mean, remember,
Speaker 1: the fossil lottery has few winners. Almost all organisms that
Speaker 1: ever live just decom hose and disappear without leaving a trace.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, there are a couple of reasons you cannot
Speaker 1: use this mosquito or a mosquito like it to extract
Speaker 1: dino d NA DINO. Both of these reasons have to
Speaker 1: do with time. So the first is that the fossil
Speaker 1: mosquito is only forty six million years old. So the
Speaker 1: last of the non avian dinosaurs we know died out
Speaker 1: in the KPg extinction that was about sixty six million
Speaker 1: years ago. This Mosquito would have been from the Middle
Speaker 1: EO scene. So if it were possible to clone anything
Speaker 1: based on what was in the mosquitoes guts, it would
Speaker 1: have to be something that lived in North America around
Speaker 1: that period. And I was like, well, hell, I'll look
Speaker 1: up a candidate, and I found a pretty cool one
Speaker 1: that the coolest candidate I could come up with was
Speaker 1: named Miss Sonics, whose name means middle claw, and who
Speaker 1: was part of a now extinct larger group of carnivorous ungulates.
Speaker 1: Carnivorous ungulates. Remember the unguluts are the hoof to mammals. Uh.
Speaker 1: So examples would be dear you know, bo vines, uh, horses,
Speaker 1: but these, of course are carnivorous. You can't think of
Speaker 1: on gill. It's like that today there were once predatory
Speaker 1: carnivorous hoofed mammals roaming the continents. Uh. You know, trying
Speaker 1: to think of a donkey that could eat you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this is a really cool and to look up
Speaker 1: paleo art for because it seems like it's just a
Speaker 1: very hard creature to try and envision in your head.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the illustrations end up just
Speaker 1: looking like this weird kind of like long snouted, almost
Speaker 1: almost like a cross between a rodent and a lion. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's you get a really really weird sense of category
Speaker 1: confusion when you look at these images. I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of uh descriptions say it would have been in
Speaker 1: some ways superficially like a wolf, but of course it
Speaker 1: was not of the order of the dogs. It was
Speaker 1: not like a big cat. It's not like a wolf.
Speaker 1: It's not any of that In terms of evolution airy relationships.
Speaker 1: It's more like a deer or a cow or a
Speaker 1: horse or something. But it is a carnivore that would
Speaker 1: you know, might bite your leg off. So anyway, I'm
Speaker 1: all for cloning a ton of those if we could,
Speaker 1: But again I want to stress that, uh, there was
Speaker 1: not clonable material within that mosquito's abdomen, and in fact,
Speaker 1: based on what we know, there couldn't be because the
Speaker 1: other reason you couldn't clone dinosaurs from the gut contents
Speaker 1: of any mosquito is that DNA is extremely fragile. It
Speaker 1: breaks down very quickly and starts breaking down within hours
Speaker 1: of the death of an organism. After forty six million years,
Speaker 1: DNA would degrade to the point where a genome can
Speaker 1: no longer be recovered all the more at anything older
Speaker 1: than sixty six million years, so you can't get to
Speaker 1: a dinosaur. Uh So, then you might wonder, well, how
Speaker 1: long can DNA last in in preserved animal remains? What's
Speaker 1: the farthest back that we could go to sequence the
Speaker 1: genome of an extinct creature, extract all that information, and
Speaker 1: then maybe even clone it back to life if possible. Well,
Speaker 1: the MOA has a part to play in the answer
Speaker 1: to this question. I found this out by total serendipity.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know this when I started looking into
Speaker 1: this subject. Uh So, to determine the period within which
Speaker 1: you could reasonably expect to extract usable DNA from a sample,
Speaker 1: you need to know the rate of molecular decay for
Speaker 1: DNA as a molecule. And there was a study inve
Speaker 1: that looked into this question. It was by our friend
Speaker 1: Morton E. Allentoft that you mentioned earlier, but also by
Speaker 1: Matthew Collins, David Harker, James Highly, Charlotte L. Oscome, Marie L. Hale,
Speaker 1: Paula F. Campos uh oh, and apparently add others. I
Speaker 1: guess it had a lot of authors. Sorry, but it
Speaker 1: was called the Half Life of DNA and Bone Measuring
Speaker 1: Decay Kinetics in a hundred and fifty eight dated Fossils
Speaker 1: published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society b So.
Speaker 1: The authors here examined mitochondrial DNA from a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty eight radio carbon dated bones of the extinct New
Speaker 1: Zealand MOA, all from between six hundred and eight thousand
Speaker 1: years ago, and all preserved in roughly equivalent environmental conditions.
Speaker 1: And that's very important because it gives us a point
Speaker 1: of reference. If like the conditions under which the bones
Speaker 1: are preserved or roughly the same, then you can start
Speaker 1: to get a good idea between them what the average
Speaker 1: rate of decay is. It's not going to vary as
Speaker 1: much due to differing environmental factors. Um so, they estimated
Speaker 1: from this sample that the average half life of DNA
Speaker 1: was about five hundred and twenty one years. So you
Speaker 1: start with an original sample of DNA and a bone,
Speaker 1: and after five twenty one years half of it's gone.
Speaker 1: Then after another five hundred and twenty one years, half
Speaker 1: of what remains is broken down, So now you're down
Speaker 1: to a quarter of the original concentration. So the the
Speaker 1: decay adds up fast. Now, of course, the decay rate
Speaker 1: of DNA will not be the same in all cases.
Speaker 1: It's going to depend on factors about in what conditions
Speaker 1: it's preserved. But even in ideal conditions, there does appear
Speaker 1: to be a ceiling on how long DNA lasts, or
Speaker 1: or how long you could expect to get any usable
Speaker 1: information out of it. Under the absolute best conditions. This
Speaker 1: means basically every molecular bond between the nucleotides of the
Speaker 1: DNA would be broken down after about six point eight
Speaker 1: million years, but long before that, even if some bonds
Speaker 1: are still intact, the DNA would be so broken up
Speaker 1: that would be unreadable. The maximum recoverability threshold for meaningful
Speaker 1: genetic information might be something like one point five million
Speaker 1: years or so. So it seems to have been the
Speaker 1: scientific consensus for for several years now that DNA is
Speaker 1: way too short lived for us to ever clone dinosaurs.
Speaker 1: Except I did come across a really recent study just
Speaker 1: from this month March. Uh. Now, it doesn't disprove that this,
Speaker 1: but it is a still controversial reported finding that would
Speaker 1: seem to challenge this if it's correct. So it was
Speaker 1: published in National Science Review in March by Alita im
Speaker 1: Baliol at All and uh so the the author's right
Speaker 1: here quote a histological ground section from a duck build
Speaker 1: dinosaur nestling in the species is uh. Hippacrosaurus Stebben Jerry
Speaker 1: revealed micro structures morphologically consistent with nuclei and chromosomes in
Speaker 1: cells within calcified cartilage. We hypothesize that this exceptional cellular
Speaker 1: preservation extended to the molecular level and had molecular features
Speaker 1: in common with extant avian cartilage. So this is a
Speaker 1: duck build dinosaur. It's another Montana special discovered in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. It would have been a nest of young
Speaker 1: duck build herbivores that all died sometime around seventy five
Speaker 1: million years ago, and the paleontologists here were examining skull
Speaker 1: shards from these juveniles, and the shards would have been
Speaker 1: made out of car ritilage rather than out of bone.
Speaker 1: But when examining these cartilage skull shards are the remains
Speaker 1: of them. Uh. The researchers believe that they discovered signs
Speaker 1: of intact cell nuclei and DNA within these fragments, but
Speaker 1: then again, I want to say a lot of paleontologists
Speaker 1: are skeptical about this supposed find. Of course, there's the
Speaker 1: theoretical limitation on how long DNA would last, or at
Speaker 1: least is believed to last on a molecular basis. But
Speaker 1: I was also reading a piece by a University of
Speaker 1: Bristol vertebrate paleontologists named Michael Benton, who thinks it's more
Speaker 1: likely that if there is any actual DNA in this sample,
Speaker 1: it came from recent external contamination, not from a dinosaur.
Speaker 1: So I guess we'll have to wait and see what
Speaker 1: happens there with follow up research. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's interesting and he gives us some hope, right, But
Speaker 1: I've got to bring it back to the MOA. So,
Speaker 1: whatever the truth about DNA from millions of years ago,
Speaker 1: as unlikely as that seems, the MOA has existed much
Speaker 1: more recently, and for that reason, the idea of recovering
Speaker 1: the genome of the MOA and bringing a species of
Speaker 1: MOA back from extinction is much more plausible by orders
Speaker 1: of magnitude. So back to that Sharon Begley article from
Speaker 1: She writes about how there's a team of researchers based
Speaker 1: out of Harvard University that were able to assemble an
Speaker 1: almost complete genome for our old friend we mentioned in
Speaker 1: the last episode, and I think earlier in this one,
Speaker 1: the little bush moa or a nomal opterics did aform us.
Speaker 1: So these again would not be the biggest ones. These
Speaker 1: are not the towering moa. These would be the smaller variety.
Speaker 1: But I would not be surprised if they could still
Speaker 1: kick your throat out. You know, they probably were some
Speaker 1: tough little customers. As we were talking about earlier, the
Speaker 1: little bush moa when extinct in the thirteenth century. Now,
Speaker 1: this work was dependent on DNA extracted from the tow
Speaker 1: bone of a moa that was housed in the Royal
Speaker 1: Ontario Museum in Toronto. And this kind of reconstruction is
Speaker 1: not easy at all because, well, you can extra act
Speaker 1: a lot of genetic information the physical genome that, like
Speaker 1: the chromosomes, are often kind of shattered, so you have
Speaker 1: to figure out how all the pieces of information that
Speaker 1: you've extracted fit together into a broader chromosomal structure. And
Speaker 1: as with other assemblies of this kind, the researchers here
Speaker 1: looked into the genomes of living relatives for clues, basing
Speaker 1: the reconstruction of the pieces on the reference template of
Speaker 1: an EMU, kind of like how mammoth reconstruction would be
Speaker 1: based on the genome of of living elephants and things
Speaker 1: like that. Now, at the time of Begley's article, there
Speaker 1: were several experts in the field who praised the work.
Speaker 1: Morton Allan Toft, who we were talking about several times, Uh,
Speaker 1: he called it a significant step forward. Also, the evolutionary
Speaker 1: molecular biologist Beth Shapiro of You See Santa Cruz praised
Speaker 1: the research. There was one concerning feature. So this paper
Speaker 1: in ten was published on bio archive, which is a
Speaker 1: non peer reviewed preprint server. It's so it's like, nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with something going up on there. It's a place
Speaker 1: to post research for public access and review before it
Speaker 1: gets published in a journal. But I was unable to
Speaker 1: find evidence of this paper appearing in an actual journal
Speaker 1: since then, So I'm not sure what that means. Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe it doesn't mean anything, or maybe it means something
Speaker 1: about this genome assembly didn't hold up to scrutiny. I guess.
Speaker 1: I guess we'll have to wait and see. But either way,
Speaker 1: the recent disappearance of the moa I think absolutely makes
Speaker 1: them a potential candidate for de extinction, and this research
Speaker 1: helps move things in that direction. Now. Of course, just
Speaker 1: because we could doesn't necessarily mean that we should. I
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know if I have a
Speaker 1: position on the ethics of de extinction overall. But uh,
Speaker 1: obviously that's a question that should be considered before we
Speaker 1: bring these things back and just set them loose at
Speaker 1: Disney World. But what an attraction that would be at
Speaker 1: disney World, Right, you go up to the Mickey, you
Speaker 1: get your picture taken with the Mickey, then you go
Speaker 1: up to the moa, you try to get your picture taken.
Speaker 1: You see if it cooperates danger Sure, but it's like
Speaker 1: what if what if Jonald Duck could kick what if
Speaker 1: you had them my decloto? Yeah, I mean there's so
Speaker 1: many factors to consider and potentially reintroducing a creature like this,
Speaker 1: you know, even if it's feasible to to bring them back,
Speaker 1: because again, you're you're to a certain extent doing what
Speaker 1: all these different waves of interference have done in the past.
Speaker 1: You're taking the environment and you're shaking it up again.
Speaker 1: You're you're adding something to it, even if it's something
Speaker 1: that used to be there in some form. Um, it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's a difficult equation. And then I imagine also there's
Speaker 1: the argument of is this the best use of our
Speaker 1: our energy towards you should we instead be focusing on
Speaker 1: creatures that are still with us, that can be um,
Speaker 1: that can be saved, or creatures that are saying extinct
Speaker 1: in the wild but can still be reintroduced. I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of those are are you know, entirely separate
Speaker 1: battles so that you know that that you know certainly
Speaker 1: involved genetics. But um, yeah, it's it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: complex situation. It's not just a matter of, oh, well
Speaker 1: we can bring it back, let's do it. Moa is everywhere.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, if we were going to make a
Speaker 1: hark with de extinctive animals, maybe maybe extinct giant birds
Speaker 1: rather than dinosaurs. Since you can't do the non avian dinosaurs,
Speaker 1: why not terror birds in MOA's Without a doubt, I would.
Speaker 1: I would love to see one of these creatures in
Speaker 1: real life. They just sound amazing. It's you know, to
Speaker 1: see these these two legged organisms handling about, Uh, muntioned
Speaker 1: on twigs and branches. Uh, it would be beautiful, provided
Speaker 1: you know, there was there was the space for it. Um.
Speaker 1: So I don't know it would be interested to see
Speaker 1: what happens with this. I know it's been It's been
Speaker 1: brought up before sometimes I think by politicians even um,
Speaker 1: and it's been kind of controversial. There's a New Zealand
Speaker 1: politician who for some reason has been very in favor
Speaker 1: of bringing back the moa. I'm not sure why, by
Speaker 1: the way, I just looked it up. Unfortunately, the terror
Speaker 1: birds appeared to be just out of range given the
Speaker 1: figures we were citing early I think they went extinct
Speaker 1: probably around one point eight million years ago. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: there you go, the mo moas it is then MOA's
Speaker 1: elephant bird's anything else you know within within reach that
Speaker 1: would have to Those would have to be the main
Speaker 1: attractions at our park. Give me a host eagle baby,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for for sure. All right, So there you
Speaker 1: have it are two part look at the Moa, The
Speaker 1: Rise of the Moa, the Twilight of the Moa. I
Speaker 1: found this to be just a really engrossing, uh project
Speaker 1: to work on because it ends up, you know, dealing
Speaker 1: with so many things you're dealing with, uh, with biology,
Speaker 1: evolution of organisms, You're dealing with the history of human migration, UH,
Speaker 1: colonial disruption, and then the possibility of of bringing an
Speaker 1: extinct creature back to life through genetic science. Uh. It
Speaker 1: really has everything spared no expense. Yeah, all right, So
Speaker 1: obviously we'd love to hear from everyone out there. I
Speaker 1: also know that we have you know, we have plenty
Speaker 1: of listeners who live in New Zealand and who have
Speaker 1: traveled to New Zealand or have some sort of roots
Speaker 1: or connection to New Zealand. We would love to hear
Speaker 1: from you about this topic. What are your thoughts about
Speaker 1: the moa uh and what you have to add to
Speaker 1: our discussion here. What are your thoughts about being called Kiwi's?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I would. I would love to hear
Speaker 1: from actual uh New Zealand residents on the matter. Would
Speaker 1: they rather be called MOA's Mm hmm, Sorry, I mean
Speaker 1: both of the names of birds, so I don't know.
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Speaker 1: recording from home, so so big shout out to Seth.
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Speaker 1: back on this episode or any other, to suggest a
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