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Photograph by Robb Kendrick
Taxidermic specimen, Regional Government of Aragon, SpainBUCARDO
Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica
The bucardo, or Pyrenean ibex, lived high in the Pyrenees until its extinction in 2000. Three years later researchers attempted to clone Celia, the last bucardo. The clone died minutes after birth. -
Photograph by Robb Kendrick
Taxidermic specimen, Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C.PASSENGER PIGEON
Ectopistes migratorius
Billions of the birds once filled the skies of eastern North America. Martha, the last one (pictured), died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. Geneticists now think they could resurrect the species. -
Photograph by Robb Kendrick
Taxidermic specimen, American Museum of Natural History, New YorkTHYLACINE
Thylacinus cynocephalus
Though it looked like a wolf and was called a Tasmanian tiger, the thylacine was actually a marsupial—a relative of kangaroos and koalas. By the 1930s it had been hunted to extinction in the wild. -
Photograph by Robb Kendrick
Reconstruction, Natural History Gallery, Royal BC Museum, Victoria, British ColumbiaWOOLLY MAMMOTH
Mammuthus primigenius
Woolly mammoths retreated to eastern Siberia by the end of the Ice Age, about 10,000 years ago, then died out. A staple of museum dioramas, they’re candidates for rebirth—with elephants as surrogate mothers. -
Photograph by Robb Kendrick
Body puppet, George C. Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, Los AngelesSABER-TOOTHED CAT
Smilodon fatalis
Saber-toothed cats went extinct after the Ice Age; paleontologists are not sure what caused their extinction. This cat was brought to life by a puppeteer: It’s a creation of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. -
Photograph by Robb Kendrick
Taxidermic specimen, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County,
Los AngelesGREAT AUK
The great auk (Pinguinis impennis) was the penguin of the Northern Hemisphere, a flightless goose-size bird that dove into the North Atlantic to feed on fish and other prey. When it waddled onto the shores of rocky islands to breed, it was helpless against sailors who killed the great auk for food. The last pair ever recorded lived on the island of Eldey, near Iceland. On June 3, 1844, sailors clubbed them to death, and the great auk has never been seen alive since. -
Art: Raúl Martín. Source: Sergey Zimov, Northeast Science Station; Nikita Zimov, Pleistocene Park
RUSSIAN RENEWAL
What would we do with mammoths if we could clone them? Biologist Sergey Zimov’s suggestion: Set them loose in Pleistocene Park, a refuge he established in northeastern Siberia in 1996. Zimov argues that mammoths and other large Ice Age herbivores sustained the Siberian steppe that sustained them: They ate the grass, but they also fertilized it and tilled the soil with their hooves. Horses, bison, and other introduced herbivores are already transforming the park’s moss-dominated tundra back into grassland a mammoth could call home. -
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