genetics
Maclear rat: Researchers wanted to revive extinct species
The Maclear rat was native to the jungles of Christmas Island
© public domain/Wikipedia
Researchers from Denmark have tried to revive the extinct Maclear rat. They weren’t particularly successful.
It might sound exciting to some, and a bit scary to others. It’s a bit reminiscent of the “Jurassic Park” film series or even the story of Frankenstein, where living beings were also revived – and that, at least in fiction, always went quite wrong.
Researchers have now found two preserved specimens of the so-called Maclear rat in a museum in Oxford, UK. The rat species originally came from Christmas Island and has been considered extinct since 1903 (since 1908 at the latest). Using these two specimens, the scientists from Denmark are now trying to revive this extinct species.
95 percent is not enough
The evolutionary geneticist Tom Gilbert from the University of Copenhagen published a report in the scientific journal Current Biology that the researchers were able to isolate fragments of DNA from the preserved rats. As a model for putting the snippets of the genome in the right order, the team used the genome of the brown rat – a close relative who is still alive – as a guide. The genome of the Maclear rat has been deciphered to 95 percent. However, this is apparently not enough to successfully “revive” one of the animals. The gene segment for the immune system and for the sense of smell were completely missing, which is why the animal’s survival would hardly be possible.
Maclear rats have been said to have been extinct for over 100 years
At that time, the rats could grow up to 26 centimeters in length, similar to house rats from our latitudes. The Maclear rats’ fur was reddish-grey in color and erect on the back. The animals lived in the earth or in tree roots in the jungle of the Christmas Islands, they mainly fed on fruits. When a settlement was built on the island in the 19th century and the supply ships brought house rats, pathogens also came to the island, which were transmitted to the Maclear rats. This led to mass extinctions, which ultimately led to the extinction of the species.
Sources: hot / Deutschlandfunk