Adams Mammoth - Possible Resurrection

Possible Resurrection

The existence of preserved soft tissue remains and DNA of woolly mammoths has led to the idea that the species could be recreated by scientific means. Two methods have been proposed to achieve this. The first method is cloning, which would involve removing the genetic material of the egg cell of a female elephant, and replace it with nuclei cells from woolly mammoth tissue. The cell would then be stimulated into dividing, inserted back into a female elephant, and the resulting calf would then be a perfect copy of the woolly mammoth the DNA was extracted from. To date the most intact mammoths discovered thus far have had little usable DNA due to the same extreme conditions that preserved them, and is therefore not usable for development of an embryo. In 2008, a Japanese team was successful in finding useful DNA in the brains of mice that had been frozen for 16 years. They hope to use similar methods to find usable mammoth DNA. In 2011, Japanese scientists announced plans to clone the species within six years. In 2009, the Pyrenean Ibex (a subspecies of the Spanish ibex) was the first extinct animal to be cloned back to life; the clone lived for seven minutes before dying of lung defects. In 2010, scientists at the University of Manitoba successfully recreated woolly mammoth hemoglobin; the resulting samples are akin to drawing hemoglobin directly from a living specimen. Further adding to hopes, recently Pennsylvania State University successfully mapped the mammoth genome, meaning eventually a complete strand of DNA may be synthesized using the DNA of other organisms.

The second method involves artificially inseminating an elephant egg cell with sperm cells from a frozen woolly mammoth carcass. The resulting offspring would be a half-elephant hybrid, and the process would have to be repeated so more hybrids could be used in breeding. After several generations of cross-breeding these hybrids, an almost pure woolly mammoth would be produced. The fact that sperm cells of living mammals are only potent after 15 years of deep-freezing at most is a hindrance to this method. There is one known case in which an Asian elephant and an African elephant have produced a live offspring, named Motty, although the calf died of defects at less than two weeks old.

Mammoth expert Adrian Lister has questioned the ethics of such recreation attempts. In addition to the technical problems themselves, he notes that there is not much habitat left that would be suitable for woolly mammoths. Because the species was highly social and gregarious, creating a few specimens would not be ideal. He also notes that the time and resources required would be enormous, and that the scientific benefits would be unclear; these resources should instead be used to preserve extant elephant species which are endangered.