The thylacine, or “Tasmanian tiger,” is a prime example of what can happen when a keystone species goes extinct — when these carnivorous marsupials, which look like dogs, but with kangaroo-like pouches and tiger stripes, went extinct in 1936, it had a domino effect in Australia.
One example of those effects can be seen in the Tasmanian devil population, according to [Andrew Pask, head of the University of Melbourne’s Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research (TIGRR) Lab] — a facial tumor disease that nearly wiped out the species over the past few decades might not have spread so widely had thylacines been around to kill the infected and weak animals.
Pask is now working with Colossal Biosciences — a company focused on using genetic engineering to resurrect extinct species — to explore the possibility of “de-extincting” the Tasmanian tiger.
The goal wouldn’t be to produce an exact replica of the animal — that’s likely impossible — but to create a proxy that could take its place in the Australian ecosystem.
“We think that bringing that animal back to Tasmania would have incredible benefits, not just for the Tasmanian devil population but for all sorts of unforeseen parts of that ecosystem,” Pask told Al Jazeera.
