Tasmanian tiger (thylacine)
Recently scientists from the United States and Australia have started a project to revive the ‘Tasmanian tiger’ using gene-editing techniques.
The aim of this project is to revive this creature in its native Tasmania to restore the destroyed ecological balance of this Tasmania.
It is a marsupial, which became extinct in the 1930s.
Marsupials are considered to be a form of infantile mammals.
They are viviparous organisms i.e. give live birth and not eggs but they do not have a long gestation period like placental mammals.
It was the apex predator of Tasmanian territory. Its disappearance from the food chain has resulted in ‘trophic down grading’. This has resulted in loss or exponential growth of other species, forest fires, increase of invasive species etc.
Trophic downgrading is the extinction event of an apex predatory organism from an ecosystem.
Source – The Hindu
