But it depends on intelligent design. Last March,
The genome of an extinct Australian frog has been revived and reactivated by a team of scientists using sophisticated cloning technology to implant a “dead” cell nucleus into a fresh egg from another frog species.
The bizarre gastric-brooding frog, Rheobatrachus silus – which uniquely swallowed its eggs, brooded its young in its stomach and gave birth through its mouth – became extinct in 1983.
But the Lazarus Project team has been able to recover cell nuclei from tissues collected in the 1970s and kept for 40 years in a conventional deep freezer. The “deextinction” project aims to bring the frog back to life.
In repeated experiments over five years, the researchers
used a laboratory technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer. They took fresh donor eggs from the distantly related Great Barred Frog, Mixophyes fasciolatus, inactivated the egg nuclei and replaced them with dead nuclei from the extinct frog. Some of the eggs spontaneously began to divide and grow to early embryo stage – a tiny ball of many living cells. Although none of
the embryos survived beyond a few days, genetic tests confirmed that the dividing cells contain the genetic material from the extinct frog. More.
The frog was declared extinct in the wild in 2002, according to published criteria. Note also that there is such a thing as Lazarus species, species declared extinct but found again later.
When they get round to reviving extinct pig species, we get to call it Jurassic Pork.
Here’s the frog, in Spanish :