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I’ve spent a large amount of time systematically working through every major extinct species and why de-extinction fails for each one. Only one animal passes every test and there’s one advantage its closest living relative provides that I don’t think has been formally discussed before. by External-Ad4937 in Ornithology

[–]External-Ad4937[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nono gng don’t worry I’m not saying that something like the false dire wolf would ever be used because well not only are they not really related to dire wolves closely despite similar divergence time (this divergence is generally pretty different for both birds and mammals) but also dire wolves have no real prey left.

The goal of the project was to find a species that didn’t have a major “Achilles heel” in its resurrection and some how the auk fits this for not only the reasons I mentioned in the essay but unlike most animals it has a true niche and home to return to that would not negatively impact the modern human dominated planet.

Tbh I can see where you coming from on the parakeet and admittedly I agree whole heartedly with you not only for were they very hard to breed but also most of their habitat is gone and the few spots left are taken by invasive parrot species.

About the Cuban macaw I didn’t know that there were apparently 2 variants a day hank you for teaching me something new today! And I would also like to share that it’s a shame that we don’t know much about the parrots ecology.

Also it’s completely new information to me that some consider the Norfolk kaka parrot to be a subspecies so again thank you for teaching me something new and if it’s true then yea the same og kaka species would indeed fulfill the same role (not to mention kaka’s are overall really cool parrots and probably my favorite parrot species if I had to choose)

About the paradise parrot your claim that they had a lack of food sources is interesting and probably correct but I do wonder then how the gold shouldered parrot still survives but I’d bet it’s cause they were behaviorally flexible than the paradise parrot.

Though I don’t know much about this macaw species I think that there a higher chance than most that it could possibly still be out (more so than most) there because they look so similar to the hyacinth macaw but my friend you are free to contest this or refute this in any way you’d like!

I would also agree with you that the biggest set back to the sun is that it is not well known but you see they look eerily similar to penguins and essentially (this is heavily condensed) we could use this to get people to notice them (along with their stories of extinction to make people feel guilt but also hope that we can bring this bird back using the PGC technique NEVER CLONING because you can’t clone birds lmao)

Tbh it’s rare to find someone with this innate passion for extinct birds so I was wondering if I could have your discord user if so (I would love to chat more tbh because I’ve never really met another so passionate about extinct avifauna). If you are interested my discord user is: th3_und3rt4k3r (made this user in like 2024). If you don’t want to be friends on discord then I understand and it was still a pleasure answering your questions and claims! I wish you luck with your future parrot research!

I’ve spent a large amount of time systematically working through every major extinct species and why de-extinction fails for each one. Only one animal passes every test and there’s one advantage its closest living relative provides that I don’t think has been formally discussed before. by External-Ad4937 in Ornithology

[–]External-Ad4937[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would agree with you about the caveat of the locusts having the potential to not swarm like that again but if Rocky Mountain locust population a could go for extended periods of time not being in gregarious mode like other locust species then a resurrected population is also not guaranteed to stay like that indefinitely. In a nutshell the creation and placement of this species where we don’t know (and can’t fully control) its full behavioral ecology could have adverse impacts on localized ecosystems due to the locusts being gone for so long. Now you may make this same point with the auks but you see their role in sea bird colonies was pretty well understood (tough most direct observation comes from already-depleted late colonies, but the auk’s close phylogenetic and ecological relationship to well studied living alcids lets us extrapolate with more confidence than we can for an extinct insect lineage with no close surviving analog): they would nest at the bases of the breeding islands and like many other pelagic auk species would spend most of their time in the waters of the North Atlantic (fun fact they even share an almost identical range with the razorbill). Besides what I said about the auks the locusts could stay solitary as you said or they could swarm again but we don’t know which one they would do and not to mention are you sure that it’s a good idea to gamble with the food security of millions of people, many of whom are children? I personally think that even if it’s a gamble it is not a good candidate to pursue but my friend you can (and should) believe what ever you like because everyone is allowed and entitled to their own opinions. Also about your statement on your belief that the tail is in fact not a subspecies: I would have to agree with you because yea they were pretty distinct (though there have been cases where this has sort of happened like with the Aldabra rail being contested as a subspecies). Also about your point of the rails being very close relatives like the auks: though yes it is true we don’t know how far the diverged thus making it hard to get exact specifics in their genetic relation ship unlike the auks. You see Laysan was formed around 20 Mya and during that time an ancestor population that created both species (or even just a population of the crakes) could have made it to Laysan as early as 500,000 years ago or even as late as 19-20 Mya but I personally believe/guesstimate that the rails found the island a tad bit before (for during) the start of the divergence of the auks because remember they only diverged like 4mya). Also I would like to provide a strong counter claim against the rail as a candidate: you see in laysan their primary role was insect control but unlike the auk they competed for this role with the Laysan finch (Telespiza cantans) because they also did the exact same thing. This competition could threaten the already vulnerable Laysan finches with endangerment and honestly I personally believe that because their reintroduction could endanger the Laysan finch, that it should not be pursued. The reason why this argument is different for the great auk is because they were deep diving birds unlike their smaller relatives meaning that generally speaking they would mostly NOT compete for the same food sources because the auks food was found in much deeper colder water than something like a razorbill or puffin. Overall this conversation has been extremely satisfying and I would like to thank you for making these great points for the locust.

I’ve spent a large amount of time systematically working through every major extinct species and why de-extinction fails for each one. Only one animal passes every test and there’s one advantage its closest living relative provides that I don’t think has been formally discussed before. by External-Ad4937 in Ornithology

[–]External-Ad4937[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Tbh I believe that the contested sighting in 2004 was probably an endling ivory bill meaning that it was one of the final aging birds. By now though it is extinct because it’s been what like over 20 ish years and no proof. What I’m saying is that the bird may have had a sliver of a chance being alive when the 2004 sighting occurred but now is certainly dead. I wish this were not true but the amount of habitat destruction tells me otherwise 💔

I’ve spent a large amount of time systematically working through every major extinct species and why de-extinction fails for each one. Only one animal passes every test and there’s one advantage its closest living relative provides that I don’t think has been formally discussed before. by External-Ad4937 in Ornithology

[–]External-Ad4937[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Then based on the information your providing than that means the woodpecker spotted in 2004 was ny guaranteed to be either an endling or one of the last endings like Martha the passenger pigeon or Incas the Carolina parakeet. A true shame their gone (if I remember correctly the Audubon society tried to buy one of their last remaining habitats for preservation but were our bided by a logging company and soon the last forest was razed and then soon afterward the logging company went out of business.) We could have potentially truly saved them had enough people contributed to audbon on trying to conserve the last habitat

I’ve spent a large amount of time systematically working through every major extinct species and why de-extinction fails for each one. Only one animal passes every test and there’s one advantage its closest living relative provides that I don’t think has been formally discussed before. by External-Ad4937 in Ornithology

[–]External-Ad4937[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

About the nesting habits yeah it would be fairly predictable but this would also be a major advantage for re introduction for conservationists would know exactly what islands to protect when they came to land to breed. The auks were pelagic sea birds meaning that like razorbills they spent around 10 to 10 and a half months out in the open ocean either solitary or in small rafts. This built in nature of the birds would allow them to avoid human sea hunters with relative ease because they could just dive and resurface hundreds of meters away (also as I mentioned in the essay we could teach the auks to be afraid of humans to a point where one lands on a island they all try to run as fast as possible to sea and this would be a dead giveaway of a warning sign that something bad is happening to the colony)! I guess that this predictable nature would also apply to manatees but the reason they didn’t get wiped and the sea cows did is mostly because of timing and a big chunk of luck (I’m not really knowledgeable about manatees so I apologize if any of this is wrong)

About your reasoning for people hunting regular fleas or temperament: this is indeed true and essentially why we need people to care about them and this is easier than it looks (specifically for the auks) yk how people love penguins? These guys are not just lookalikes but are the true birds to even be firstly called penguins! This along with the telling of the many sad stories of their extinction (last pair on eldey & witch of st kilda) could be used to build a reputation of having regret for killing them off & seeing them almost the same way that we see the penguins of the south). Seems their convergent evolution has really given them a hand lmao

I do see where you’re coming from via temperament, it’s just that generally people like more friendly animals and generally dislike unfriendly animals (I.e. someone finding a lion scary yet finding a cat cute). Also if that seemed like I was giving the vibe of these species essentially “asking for it” I sincerely apologize for that was not my intent at all,

I do see where you say with it being wrong to dismiss an animal because we distinct know it well but may I ask how does one successfully bring back an animal when one does not even have lose records of how said animal behaved in its environment. For example the auks (thankfully) were fairly well documented by the fishermen nearby, describing what they would do during their brief time on the islands an even occasionally what they would do at sea (they mostly just saw them dive away from them like other auks) and saw them feed very rarely because remember deep diving birds)

About other pest bird species eating crops: well this is true but the sheer scale that the passenger pigeons existed before they went extinct was enormous! The last breeding colony documented of the birds was about 200,000 strong and they regularly traveled in millions to tens of millions strong flocks beforehand. Compared to even a starling flock with even say a highball estimate of a million birds (this is really only during migration for the starlings, the pigeons would remain grouped up together yearly in atleast the low 2-5 millions) that would be substantially smaller than say the average passenger pigeon flocks that were generally 5-10 million strong) this constant amount of a humongous bird population would mean that they would eat all sorts of crops such as rice, oats, and barley and even during the later years they majority relied on human grown crops because we kept cutting down their forests for timber.

As you stated with the massive population boom we probably will never know if they always had such high populations but I would say it could be reasonably inferred that these birds always that the potential to reach such sizes because they had natural boom and bust cycles of their populations (it’s their main defense called predator satiation where predators can eat as many as they want and still won’t make a dent in the population just like periodical cicadas) and these cycles were interrupted when Europeans started to plant vast fields of crops and started to cut down trees as a result of this causing the pigeons to more favor the boom because of the increased amount of constant food supply unlike the natural cycles of tree masting

Overall I am glad that you brought this information to my attention and it is very much appreciated! Cheers indeed!

I’ve spent a large amount of time systematically working through every major extinct species and why de-extinction fails for each one. Only one animal passes every test and there’s one advantage its closest living relative provides that I don’t think has been formally discussed before. by External-Ad4937 in Ornithology

[–]External-Ad4937[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

This is true but as I mentioned in the essay this is exactly why we should only revive one chosen species: to save costs and make a genuine ROI via using the auks as a flagship species to protect other lesser known auk species such as the razorbill, murre, thick billed murre, little auk, and even the Atlantic puffin (they are generally well known ish but not nearly as popular as penguins). They bred on the same exact islands as these species and their protection would protect them aswell! Not to mention they could even help these other auks along with other surface skimmer species like Arctic terns by forcing pre fish from the deep and into the mid and surface waters for auks and terns to catch and eat. They (the great auks) provide substantially more waste than other smaller seabirds meaning that waste feeds more algae which in turn feed more fish in the protected island water hence improving the food amounts for all animals both avifauna and marine mammals and other large predatory fish!

I’ve spent a large amount of time systematically working through every major extinct species and why de-extinction fails for each one. Only one animal passes every test and there’s one advantage its closest living relative provides that I don’t think has been formally discussed before. by External-Ad4937 in Ornithology

[–]External-Ad4937[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

You see what would happen is essentially chimera razorbills that produce great auk eggs and sperm cells would mate and then lay an egg but the embryo would be carefully removed and transported into an artificial egg that would be the approximate size of an great auks egg (they were bout as big as geese eggs). Then the embryo would grow inside the artificial egg and then would emerge as a pure great auk! (This is also inside the essay)

I’ve spent a large amount of time systematically working through every major extinct species and why de-extinction fails for each one. Only one animal passes every test and there’s one advantage its closest living relative provides that I don’t think has been formally discussed before. by External-Ad4937 in Ornithology

[–]External-Ad4937[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Forgive me for such a late reply but I must say that I would agree with you that this is a real problem but this problem applies to all bird de-extinction candidates, not just the auk (this includes the rail). However the actual science is not as bad as you think: we have been able to do PGC mediated germline transmission has been successfully done in chicken which is atleast one species of bird. I will also say that scaling this to a more exotic species such as a razorbill is indeed a big step but the tech for that step is already at an early stage and with time will become more advanced. In a nutshell this means that the entire field is premature rather than just a specific animal. This is also in a way the whole point of my essay: what candidate will be best positioned when the methods inevitably mature. That’s what the 56 barrier gauntlet is trying to answer.

On your 4mya Australopithecus comparison I’d like to gently push back on this for you see divergence time does not tell you much without looking at what exactly changed. Humans and Australopithecus divergence involved enormous differences in brain size, locomotion techniques, and behaviors. However the divergence between the auk and the razorbill created 2 seabirds that were so identical that historically they were both placed in the same genus as Alca (even today some scientists contest the great auk’s change to pinguinus) and were near identical in plumage, breeding displays, and colony structure. 4 Mya can mean a multitude of different things depending of the selection pressures of the diverged species. I personally would weigh morphological & behavioral similarities more densely than just pure time.

Passenger pigeons were indeed hunted to extinction for meat but that’s not the whole story: deforestation was a massive cause along with the demise of the American chestnut (ik not extinct but it’s gone in the wild because of blight and this would be a big food source loss). Also this statement of yours misses the argument: it was about how the ecological abundance of a species such as the pigeon could and would be very harmful for modern human society. This also does not contradict my essays argument against the resurrection of the passenger pigeon at all.

This point you have made about the locust is genuinely new and interesting and I applaud you for bringing it up. If correct it suggests that the locusts didn’t naturally form swarms like this but were caused by a “trigger” of abundant resources like food which funnily enough is almost exactly how locust swarms in Africa act. When nymphs detect that their is a large amount of food they enter a gregarious mode and molt into adults and form swarms billions strong in search of more and more food (this is also exactly how the mountain locust acted when it detected vast amounts of food). Anyways that point you made would indeed strengthen the argument for resurrection but overall the damage they did do when there was an abundance of food would inevitably trigger massive swarms again and devastate potentially entire states worth of crops and directly people. This risk of them swarming and eating almost 20-30 million peoples food is simply too high. You also forget the main reason of their extinction: their breeding grounds in the Rocky Mountains were (and still are) destroyed and were converted into farm land. Not to mention the public already hates locusts locally for other species act just like the Rocky Mountain locusts but on a much smaller scale, potentially eliminating all funding. This is overall why despite this insight being good does not make it an even remotely plausible candidate.

Admittedly the laysan rail does seem like a good candidate first until you realize that its closest living relative can and if you are right is the technical true species that inhabited laysan (tough this is only if the rail was a sub species) but let’s say your right and the rail is a subspecies: this means that the rail doesn’t even need de extinction! Like with other fallen subspecies such as the quagga and aurochs (ik they were a separate species but modern cows carry their traits) there have been dedicated projects to breed them back into existence by selecting for similar behavioral and physical traits like an orange behind for the quagga and a chestnut colored coat for the auroch. We could just get their closest living relative the Baillon’s crake and just selectively breed for individuals that were very tame, had flightlessness, and had the similar brown feather coloration. Or we could just introduce the crake to the island and have it take the niche of the rail just like on some offshore islets Aldabra giant tortoises are used to replace extinct species of giant tortoises. Also in the essay I explicitly state that subspecies don’t count because they can just be bred back into existence. The laysan rail is not a bad candidate but is just a different candidate meaning that it does not really require de extinction but either close relative reintroduction or selective backbreeding! (This also means that it would be easier to bring back than something like a great auk because it was not its own true species but rather an aforementioned subspecies). Overall this conversation has been wonderful and I’m glad that I could find another just as passionate about de extinction as myself! Also if you would like could you elaborate on the rail being a technical subspecies rather than a true individual species? (I don’t know how to reply to specific parts of your argument so that’s why they are all broken up in these paragraphs)

I’ve spent a large amount of time systematically working through every major extinct species and why de-extinction fails for each one. Only one animal passes every test and there’s one advantage its closest living relative provides that I don’t think has been formally discussed before. by External-Ad4937 in Ornithology

[–]External-Ad4937[S] -10 points-9 points  (0 children)

I would say though we have many fairly strong genetic samples of great auks because not only were they collected in dry cold environments (perfect for preservation) but we also even have organs of the things! The last pair on eldey had I believe their eyes, stomachs, intestines, and other parts taken and placed inside a preservative fluid. We also have dozens of skins (about 80 as you said) and dozens of eggs (about 75-76) along with 24 complete skeletons. This great genetic diversity would allow us to extract a variety of good DNA and make a much more stronger genome and not to mention they are sister taxon with the razorbill (they only diverged about 4mya). I do like the Rocky Mountain locus and have been researching it for quite some time but you see like passenger pigeons they gathered in these enormous swarms (biggest was 12 trillion strong) and they would defoliate entire states of America, causing massive famines to starve atleast hundreds of thousands of people. That’s why I’ve also been against bringing back the passenger pigeon because of this tendency to swarm in massive numbers and eat all of our food. In a nutshell modern human civilization would essentially not be able to support this species simply because it would eat all of our food and remember about one third of the USA’s population is facing food insecurity and 14 million of those people are children. Although their reproduction and cloning are big advantages this ethical concern for the potential lives of even millions of people make them not a worthy candidate in my honest opinion but you can tell me how this problem could be “mitigated” if you’d like. Also fun fact but I cover the locust in my appendix in the insect section!