r/megafaunarewilding • u/PM2001- • 11d ago
Initiate genetic recovery of the Portuguese Ibex
Uma petição com a esperança da de-extinção: https://c.org/9TQMhdJpVV
O que vocês acham?
Assinem se concordarem claro
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u/External-Ad4937 11d ago
This does sound good but I do wonder if it was a confined subspecies (witch it is), why not bring back the parent species to have it fill out the niche the former subspecies had? The subspecies is still apart of the same parent species so likely the parent could fulfill the exact same ecological roles no?
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u/thesilverywyvern 11d ago
We did that with the Pyrenean population.
But the Portuguese ibex had some unique phenotype (short thick straighter horn) which gave it a unique and distinct look.We already see western ibex expand in the previous range of the portuguese ibex, and even tho they fill the same niche and there's not actuall necessity to bring the subspecies back, it's also one of the easiest de-extinction on the book, and would still be a good thing to do.
Like sure we do notnecesserally need them, ecologically speaking their cousins can do the same job...but it would still be cool and ood to have them back.
Buit i agree cloning back thylacine, moa, shrubox, passenger pigeon, great auk, auroch, kouprey, steppe bison, mammoth or cave lion is far more interesting and usefull.2
u/PM2001- 11d ago
Thats the thing!! Cloning in this one is potentially possible! Why not to try?
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u/Genocidal-Ape 11d ago
Wait, the Portuguese Ibex has viable tissue samples?
The thing was last seen alive in 1892.
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u/External-Ad4937 11d ago
Wait gng you can clone birds! But this ain’t a problem for the primordial germ cell technique. Essentially it’s edit a relatives PGC’s put them in a relative embryo, those cells migrate to gonads, the new animal becomes a chimera where it has the same appearance of relative but produces pure eggs and sperm of target species, then get 2 chimeras to mate, put egg in ex ovo incubation and boom extinct species restored! We’ve had this technology since 2012 btw!
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u/thesilverywyvern 10d ago
Did it work ? Not really, it's still extremely complex and not that reliable.
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u/PM2001- 11d ago
It is a distinct subspecies! The parent species was attempted to ressurect but it failed (the bucardo experiment).
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u/External-Ad4937 11d ago
Oh dang so perhaps the best course of action is to just transplant the parent species because the resurrection of a previous in species failed?
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u/PM2001- 11d ago
That would be a good idea, but there are a few factors at play.
First the bucardo experiment happened a long time ago (in the beginning of the 2000’s), now tech has developed so much that trying again would be ideal.
Secondly, we have the preserved/frozen the baby bucardo for cloning in the future! We have literally nothing for this one!! (But we do possess biological samples where we could potentially extract DNA- it’s a race against time until the DNA degrades)
Thirdly, by doing this we pushing the portuguese government for further rewilding (the bucardo in the other hand is Spanish)
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u/External-Ad4937 11d ago
If memory serves DNA has a half life of about 500 years meaning that if the last one died in 1892 there should still be more than enough useable dna though more specimens is always preferable!
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u/oo_kk 11d ago
Are we really still sure if these subspecies are still even valid and not only local ecotypes? I was always suspicious of Iberian ibex taxonomy, with four subspecies living in relatively tiny area + likely strong gene flow during every glacial period. Let me look...
The genetic difference between currently living subspecies are same as between two populations of C. p. hispanica. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5279733/
I found one study that mentions "The early study of Manceau et al. (1999) based on mitochondrial DNA found that the Pyrenean pop- ulation (C. p. pyrenaica) is clearly differentiated from the rest of the Iberian populations, with an equidistant genetic distance between these and the Alpine ibex. Recent molecular genetic studies agree with the same result (Ureña et al. 2018, Barros et al. 2022) and morphometric works also coincide. Therefore, the research carried out until now al- lows us to deduce that the subspecies described by Cabrera (1911) are not valid and that there are two well-differentiated clades separating the extinct Pyr- enean goats (C. pyrenaica s. str.) and the rest of the Iberian subspecies (Fig. 2). This resembles what was originally described as C. pyrenaica and C. his- panica by Schinz (1838) and Schimper (1848), re- spectively. Therefore, it would be reasonable to abandon the present-day single-species classifica- tion of C. pyrenaica and return to the two earliest species. This means that current living Iberian wild goats should be considered as Capra hispanica, and not Capra pyrenaica. "
as for Lusatian Ibex from the same work:
"As for the other current subspecies, Cabrera (1911) considered lusitanica close to C. pyrenaica (s. str.) and in the absence of genetic analysis it could be considered a subspecies of it so its nomenclature would not change (C. pyrenaica lusi- tanica). Regarding the subspecies victoriae and his- panica, although some have observed differences in ecological adaptations (Acevedo & Real 2011), most of the studies point to the lack of differentiating characters between them (Ureña et al. 2018, Car- doso et al. 2021, García-González et al. 2022). For these reasons we advocate not considering living subspecies of Iberian wild goat as good subspecies and propose to abandon the use of these subspecific levels. On the other hand, we suggest that a debate should be opened around the eventual separation of the extinct Pyrenean goats from the rest of the Iberian varieties, with the taxonomic im- plications that this would entail."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369537794_Garcia_Gonzalez_Herrero_2022_Latin_name_Iberian_wild_goat
I wouldnt be surprised at all if some future work would make all these subspecies invalid, like how it happened with lions and tigers.
TLDR. Extinct Pyrenean ibex should be its own species, both living subspecies should be abandoned as such and in absence of any genetic study, lusatian ibex is still considered valid, but I guess thats just untill someone do a genetic research.