Tasmanian tigers had poor gene health
THE Tasmanian tiger was doomed long before humans began hunting the enigmatic marsupial, with DNA sequencing showing it was in poor genetic health for thousands of years before its extinction, scientists said yesterday.
Scientists genetically mapped the animal — also known as a thylacine — by using the genome of a pup preserved more than a century ago in a jar.
The research revealed that the creature began to undergo a decline in genetic diversity more than 70,000 years ago, leaving it less resilient to environmental change even before Aborigines are believed to have first inhabited the continent 65,000 years ago.
“Our hope is that there is a lot the thylacine can tell us about the genetic basis of extinction to help other species,” said University of Melbourne biologist Andrew Pask, co-author of a study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Pask said the research might enable scientists to clone the Tasmanian tiger and bring it back from the dead.
“As this genome is one of the most complete for an extinct species, it is technically the first step to ‘bringing the thylacine back,’ but we are still a long way off that possibility,” he said.
Tasmanian tigers were once widespread across Australia, but were wiped out on the mainland about 3,000 years ago, having likely succumbed to drought.
They survived in the southern island state of Tasmania until 1936 when the last known one died in captivity in Hobart Zoo after the species was hunted to extinction in the wild.
Scientists found the genetics of the animal to be more closely related to the Tasmanian devil, a fellow Australian marsupial, than the dog-like dingo with whom it shared many physical features.
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