1 00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:08,639 Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff, Lauren Volbebam. Here. 2 00:00:10,680 --> 00:00:13,520 Speaker 1: The Dodo, a bird that went extinct in the sixteen 3 00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:16,959 Speaker 1: hundreds and was then made famous in traveling exhibitions and 4 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:20,800 Speaker 1: works of fiction, may be ready for a comeback. Our 5 00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:23,599 Speaker 1: researchers have been working on the de extinction of the 6 00:00:23,640 --> 00:00:26,720 Speaker 1: dodo for at least twenty years, digging into its DNA 7 00:00:26,880 --> 00:00:31,200 Speaker 1: in hopes of finding a way to resurrect it. But 8 00:00:31,600 --> 00:00:34,200 Speaker 1: let's step back a bit and get to know the dodo, 9 00:00:34,600 --> 00:00:37,080 Speaker 1: an animal that continues to live quite a life in 10 00:00:37,159 --> 00:00:40,640 Speaker 1: popular culture and our lexicon, even after its extinction more 11 00:00:40,640 --> 00:00:44,159 Speaker 1: than three hundred years ago. They lived in the forests 12 00:00:44,200 --> 00:00:47,200 Speaker 1: of Mauritius, what's now an island nation in the Indian 13 00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:50,000 Speaker 1: Ocean east of Madagascar, off the coast of Africa, but 14 00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:55,360 Speaker 1: was then an unsettled wilderness. We know that dodos were large, 15 00:00:55,360 --> 00:00:58,920 Speaker 1: flightless birds, land bound cousins of the dove and pigeon, 16 00:00:59,320 --> 00:01:01,640 Speaker 1: but a lot of the details about what they looked 17 00:01:01,720 --> 00:01:04,720 Speaker 1: like and how they lived are based on centuries old 18 00:01:04,760 --> 00:01:09,280 Speaker 1: European travel journals and artists accounts, plus what modern scientists 19 00:01:09,360 --> 00:01:13,759 Speaker 1: have managed to piece together from their remains, we think 20 00:01:13,800 --> 00:01:15,880 Speaker 1: that dodos grew to about two to three feet in 21 00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:18,559 Speaker 1: height up to a meter, and weighed up to forty 22 00:01:18,600 --> 00:01:23,199 Speaker 1: pounds or around seventeen kilos. Their feathers probably varied from 23 00:01:23,240 --> 00:01:26,560 Speaker 1: shades of brown and gray to white and black, and 24 00:01:26,640 --> 00:01:29,639 Speaker 1: they had a large, hooked beat with an exaggerated bulb 25 00:01:29,640 --> 00:01:33,240 Speaker 1: at the tip. Their wings were undersized and not developed 26 00:01:33,280 --> 00:01:38,600 Speaker 1: for flight. Although they've long been portrayed as slow, heavy, 27 00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:42,600 Speaker 1: unintelligent birds, their name has become a synonym for dim witted. 28 00:01:43,120 --> 00:01:46,000 Speaker 1: A recent analyzes show that they were pretty proportionate to 29 00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:49,560 Speaker 1: other birds, no more plump than your average well fed 30 00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:54,000 Speaker 1: pigeon or chicken. Those unkind portrayals dim from the fact 31 00:01:54,080 --> 00:01:57,880 Speaker 1: that when Portuguese and Dutch explorers and colonizers arrived on 32 00:01:57,920 --> 00:02:01,560 Speaker 1: Mauritius starting in fifteen ninety eight, the dodos were filling 33 00:02:01,600 --> 00:02:07,640 Speaker 1: a very specific evolutionary niche. These birds had no natural predators, 34 00:02:07,760 --> 00:02:11,800 Speaker 1: and they didn't fear humans. The curious birds would sometimes 35 00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:15,000 Speaker 1: approach people and could be easily herded into pens or 36 00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:17,440 Speaker 1: onto ships to be used as a food source or 37 00:02:17,480 --> 00:02:22,040 Speaker 1: a traveling curiosity. Their lack of flight, combined with other 38 00:02:22,280 --> 00:02:26,200 Speaker 1: strange seeming actions such as eating small rocks, which scientists 39 00:02:26,240 --> 00:02:30,760 Speaker 1: now believe aided in digestion, contributed to Dodo's reputation as 40 00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:34,200 Speaker 1: stupid lazy birds. The poor things were labeled with the 41 00:02:34,240 --> 00:02:38,320 Speaker 1: species name Ditis ineptus for years after the word inept 42 00:02:39,919 --> 00:02:43,359 Speaker 1: but in reality, the existing bone specimens we have from 43 00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:47,120 Speaker 1: them suggest their feet and claws were powerful along the 44 00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:50,720 Speaker 1: lines of fast, active land birds that run and climb. 45 00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:54,919 Speaker 1: They likely hunted fish and feasted on seeds and fruit. 46 00:02:55,680 --> 00:02:58,639 Speaker 1: They didn't need wings, so their bodies eventually poured those 47 00:02:58,680 --> 00:03:04,320 Speaker 1: resources into other specialties. The dodo is the first animal 48 00:03:04,320 --> 00:03:08,239 Speaker 1: that Europeans found and then found to have disappeared, the 49 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:12,720 Speaker 1: first case of extinction that European science observed. It was 50 00:03:12,760 --> 00:03:15,720 Speaker 1: a convenient narrative that the birds weren't fit for survival, 51 00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:19,000 Speaker 1: though in reality they were perfectly fit for the environment 52 00:03:19,040 --> 00:03:24,280 Speaker 1: they developed in. The Dodo went extinct because of one reason. Humans, 53 00:03:24,919 --> 00:03:28,800 Speaker 1: the Portuguese and Dutch introduced dogs, rats, pigs, monkeys, cats, 54 00:03:28,840 --> 00:03:32,600 Speaker 1: and other animals to Mauritius. These animals ate the bird's eggs, 55 00:03:32,680 --> 00:03:35,840 Speaker 1: which were laid on the ground. Humans hunted the dodos 56 00:03:35,880 --> 00:03:38,640 Speaker 1: for food, even though the meat reportedly wasn't very good, 57 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:42,800 Speaker 1: and took Dodoes abroad to be displayed in exhibits. In 58 00:03:42,840 --> 00:03:45,280 Speaker 1: the course of about eighty years, the bird and its 59 00:03:45,280 --> 00:03:51,120 Speaker 1: eggs were hunted to extinction. Over the next century, Tales 60 00:03:51,120 --> 00:03:55,040 Speaker 1: about the Dodo fell almost into legend until a wave 61 00:03:55,160 --> 00:03:58,160 Speaker 1: of new scientific interest hit in the mid eighteen hundreds, 62 00:03:58,520 --> 00:04:01,880 Speaker 1: leading to an intense public reported scrabble for bones in 63 00:04:01,880 --> 00:04:06,040 Speaker 1: the eighteen sixties. This is also when Lewis Carroll published 64 00:04:06,040 --> 00:04:09,400 Speaker 1: his mythologized depiction of a bumbling gentleman Dodo in his 65 00:04:09,440 --> 00:04:14,920 Speaker 1: book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But going was hard for 66 00:04:14,960 --> 00:04:18,919 Speaker 1: the would be dodo anatomists. The people who had originally 67 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:22,520 Speaker 1: encountered Dodos hadn't thought to preserve their eggshells or bones. 68 00:04:22,520 --> 00:04:25,720 Speaker 1: For the most part, Many Dodo bones have since been 69 00:04:25,720 --> 00:04:28,760 Speaker 1: discovered in the swamps of Mauritius, but the environment has 70 00:04:28,800 --> 00:04:32,960 Speaker 1: a corrosive effect. Only two complete skeletons have been found, 71 00:04:33,240 --> 00:04:35,719 Speaker 1: one in nineteen oh four and one in two thousand 72 00:04:35,720 --> 00:04:38,680 Speaker 1: and seven, the bladder of which has been nicknamed Fred. 73 00:04:40,320 --> 00:04:43,719 Speaker 1: There's another specimen of particular interest, a skull from a 74 00:04:43,720 --> 00:04:45,800 Speaker 1: bird that may have been exhibited when it was alive 75 00:04:45,920 --> 00:04:48,880 Speaker 1: in a London shop in the sixteen thirties. It wound 76 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:51,560 Speaker 1: up in the Oxford Museum, and it's the only known 77 00:04:51,640 --> 00:04:57,440 Speaker 1: Dodo specimen that still has soft tissue attached. Relatively well 78 00:04:57,480 --> 00:05:01,839 Speaker 1: preserved finds like these raised the question could scientists raise 79 00:05:01,960 --> 00:05:06,440 Speaker 1: the Dodo bird, though some experts contend it will never 80 00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:10,039 Speaker 1: be possible. A great debate is underway in science about 81 00:05:10,040 --> 00:05:13,920 Speaker 1: whether it's ethical to bring an extinct species back to life. 82 00:05:14,120 --> 00:05:17,040 Speaker 1: As Jeff Goldbloom's character famously put it in the original 83 00:05:17,120 --> 00:05:20,600 Speaker 1: Jurassic Park film, your scientists were so preoccupied with whether 84 00:05:20,640 --> 00:05:22,640 Speaker 1: or not they could they didn't stop to think if 85 00:05:22,680 --> 00:05:27,400 Speaker 1: they should. And now we're not too worried about rampaging 86 00:05:27,480 --> 00:05:32,240 Speaker 1: herds of dodos. This should is more that okay. But 87 00:05:32,360 --> 00:05:35,359 Speaker 1: some animals are driven to extinction by human action, but 88 00:05:35,520 --> 00:05:38,799 Speaker 1: others simply can't survive in their habitat due to natural 89 00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:43,200 Speaker 1: pressures or because of some major change in climate. Earth 90 00:05:43,200 --> 00:05:46,360 Speaker 1: has gone through several mass extinctions, and bringing back these 91 00:05:46,360 --> 00:05:51,120 Speaker 1: creatures could throw the world's ecosystems into chaos. There's the 92 00:05:51,200 --> 00:05:54,400 Speaker 1: question of where these creatures would go, especially since many 93 00:05:54,440 --> 00:05:58,960 Speaker 1: extinct creatures have no natural predators except for humans. Would 94 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:02,320 Speaker 1: putting a saber to tiger in the Siberian tundra disrupt 95 00:06:02,440 --> 00:06:06,800 Speaker 1: local food chain in addition to terrorizing the locals. The 96 00:06:06,880 --> 00:06:10,919 Speaker 1: alternative is keeping recreated species in a Jurassic park like 97 00:06:11,040 --> 00:06:15,599 Speaker 1: zoo or nature preserve, but is creating a limited life 98 00:06:15,600 --> 00:06:21,200 Speaker 1: for these creatures itself an ethical All of this aside 99 00:06:21,279 --> 00:06:24,640 Speaker 1: were also stuck on the could part of the equation too. 100 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:28,880 Speaker 1: If we had viable DNA from a Dodo, we could 101 00:06:28,960 --> 00:06:32,719 Speaker 1: hypothetically implant it into the egg cell of a related 102 00:06:32,839 --> 00:06:36,359 Speaker 1: existing species, probably a type of pigeon, and grow a 103 00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:40,960 Speaker 1: clone of the original Dodo DNA donor, assuming that we 104 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:45,200 Speaker 1: could get the egg to develop, hatch, and live. But 105 00:06:45,520 --> 00:06:49,200 Speaker 1: we don't have viable DNA so far. The warm climate 106 00:06:49,200 --> 00:06:52,240 Speaker 1: of Mauritius has proven unhelpful in preserving the DNA in 107 00:06:52,320 --> 00:06:56,040 Speaker 1: Dodo's bones, and only relatively poor quality DNA has been 108 00:06:56,080 --> 00:07:01,320 Speaker 1: extracted from the Oxford Dodo. However, our researchers have been 109 00:07:01,360 --> 00:07:05,360 Speaker 1: working on reconstructing the Dodo's genome, which is a complete 110 00:07:05,440 --> 00:07:09,359 Speaker 1: DNA map of a living creature. There's a concept that 111 00:07:09,400 --> 00:07:11,760 Speaker 1: we might be able to take a cell from probably 112 00:07:11,800 --> 00:07:15,680 Speaker 1: a pigeon and use modern genetic engineering techniques to edit 113 00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:19,840 Speaker 1: the cell's genome to match the dodos. Again, you'd then 114 00:07:19,880 --> 00:07:21,960 Speaker 1: have to implant the genome into an egg cell, and 115 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:24,560 Speaker 1: it would have to develop from there, possibly with help 116 00:07:24,560 --> 00:07:28,960 Speaker 1: from a surrogate bird. Now, as of twenty twenty two, 117 00:07:29,240 --> 00:07:31,720 Speaker 1: a team out of UC Santa Cruz reported that they 118 00:07:31,800 --> 00:07:36,040 Speaker 1: have reconstructed the dodo's genome, but there are still lots 119 00:07:36,040 --> 00:07:39,960 Speaker 1: of other problems to crack. Egg pun absolutely intended. Who 120 00:07:39,960 --> 00:07:43,800 Speaker 1: are we kidding? Birds are harder to clone than mammals 121 00:07:43,960 --> 00:07:46,880 Speaker 1: because their egg cells don't develop the same way. It 122 00:07:46,880 --> 00:07:50,080 Speaker 1: would also first have too genetically engineer a pigeon large 123 00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:53,760 Speaker 1: enough to develop and lay a Doto egg. And even 124 00:07:53,800 --> 00:07:56,560 Speaker 1: at the point that we managed all of that, this 125 00:07:56,800 --> 00:08:00,520 Speaker 1: hypothetical Dodo chick wouldn't have any family to life to 126 00:08:00,520 --> 00:08:04,480 Speaker 1: to learn how to act like a Dodo. At that point, 127 00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:07,320 Speaker 1: could we really say that we'd resurrected them or just 128 00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:10,440 Speaker 1: something that looks like them pretty much as close as 129 00:08:10,440 --> 00:08:16,840 Speaker 1: we figure. It's a lot of expensive questions to answer, though, 130 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:21,160 Speaker 1: of course, solving problems in genetics has potentially much more 131 00:08:21,200 --> 00:08:24,760 Speaker 1: far reaching results. If we could bring back a Dodo. 132 00:08:24,960 --> 00:08:28,120 Speaker 1: Could we help save existing species before they hit the 133 00:08:28,120 --> 00:08:32,280 Speaker 1: point of extinction? Imagine a future We're going the way 134 00:08:32,320 --> 00:08:41,680 Speaker 1: of the Dodo actually meant making triumphant return. Today's episode 135 00:08:41,720 --> 00:08:44,520 Speaker 1: is based on the article could scientists resurrect the Dodo bird? 136 00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:48,040 Speaker 1: On HowStuffWorks dot Com? Written by Jacob Silverman. Brain Stuff 137 00:08:48,080 --> 00:08:50,520 Speaker 1: is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with HowStuffWorks 138 00:08:50,559 --> 00:08:53,240 Speaker 1: dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more 139 00:08:53,280 --> 00:08:56,920 Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 140 00:08:57,040 --> 00:09:08,240 Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.