Will dinosaurs ever roam the Earth again? They are our best-loved monsters. But could the discovery of their DNA be possible? Or could they one day be genetically engineered?
Jurassic giants emerge from US badlands
Will dinosaurs ever roam the Earth again? They are our best-loved monsters. But could the discovery of their DNA be possible? Or could they one day be genetically engineered?
Deep in the Jurassic jungle, you see the largest animal to walk the Earth. The sauropod towers above you, its long neck reaching for leaves.
Two of these giants have gone on show at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. Their fossilised bones lay entombed in quarry rock in Wyoming for 150 million years. Scientists say they are a taste of the wonders buried in the Jurassic MileA one-square-mile of ground in the Big Horn Basin in Wyoming. Today it is hot and dry but during the Jurassic period it was wet and tropical. Flash floods killed and buried many dinosaurs leaving a rich deposit of remains..
There's no escaping our love of these lizards. It began when a 12-year-old girl discovered something monstrous in the cliffs at Lyme Regis.
Her name was Mary Anning, the year was 1811 and she had found an ichthyosaur - a marine reptile that lived over 90 million years ago. Anning became a famous fossil hunter and her finds were studied by geologist William Buckland. In 1824, he announced a sensational discovery: the megalosaurusWilliam Buckland is not the only scientist who claimed to be the first to discover dinosaurs. Two years earlier, Gideon Mantell found Iguanodon teeth, but Buckland claimed they belonged to a fish., the first identified dinosaur.
Since then, dino mania has inspired scientists to ask questions about our planet. Dinosaurs have changed our understanding of how life evolves. For some, the next step is to bring them back to life.
Others are less convinced. "Ethically messy, ecologically awkward, and really expensive." That's ecologist Douglas McCauley's take on the whole idea of de-extinctionAlso known as resurrection biology. The woolly mammoth is the most likely candidate for resurrection and existed as recently as 4,000 years ago.. Biologist Joseph Bennett says: "It's better to spend the money on the living than the dead." For him, conservation is far more critical than playing Dr FrankensteinIn Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein creates a living monster from dead body parts..
There is much we don't know, how dinosaurs hunted, raised young, used colour and display to find mates and deter predators.
Dinosaur expert Steve Brusatte says it "would simply be cruel". The world was a different place 70 million years ago.
Jurassic Park gave some dinosaurs like velociraptors a movie makeover. The cinematic star was scaly, as big as a horse and intelligent. The real thing was the size of a turkey and had feathers.
"It's important that people understand dinosaurs are still among us," says palaeontologist Mark Norell. "They're represented by at least 13,000 species alive today."
Maybe pigeons don't fire the imagination quite like a T.rex.
Will dinosaurs ever roam the Earth again?
Yes: These extraordinary animals compel us to dream big. Mary Anning could not imagine fossil hunters would unearth over 1,000 dinosaur species. Who knows what science will achieve in the future.
No: It's unlikely and is probably for the best. We are fascinated by their ghostly presence in the rock and the tragedy of their extinction. In the flesh, they would lose that mystery and magic.
Or... The question is dangerously misleading. There are 225 critically endangered birds in the world and we have lost over 150 species since 1500. We should protect the dinosaurs still among us.
Keywords
Jurassic Mile - A one-square-mile of ground in the Big Horn Basin in Wyoming. Today it is hot and dry but during the Jurassic period it was wet and tropical. Flash floods killed and buried many dinosaurs leaving a rich deposit of remains.
Megalosaurus - William Buckland is not the only scientist who claimed to be the first to discover dinosaurs. Two years earlier, Gideon Mantell found Iguanodon teeth, but Buckland claimed they belonged to a fish.
De-extinction - Also known as resurrection biology. The woolly mammoth is the most likely candidate for resurrection and existed as recently as 4,000 years ago.
Dr Frankenstein - In Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein creates a living monster from dead body parts.
Jurassic Park - Originally a novel by Michael Crichton, it was adapted for film by Steven Spielberg in 1993.
Jurassic giants emerge from US badlands
Glossary
Jurassic Mile - A one-square-mile of ground in the Big Horn Basin in Wyoming. Today it is hot and dry but during the Jurassic period it was wet and tropical. Flash floods killed and buried many dinosaurs leaving a rich deposit of remains.
Megalosaurus - William Buckland is not the only scientist who claimed to be the first to discover dinosaurs. Two years earlier, Gideon Mantell found Iguanodon teeth, but Buckland claimed they belonged to a fish.
De-extinction - Also known as resurrection biology. The woolly mammoth is the most likely candidate for resurrection and existed as recently as 4,000 years ago.
Dr Frankenstein - In Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein creates a living monster from dead body parts.
Jurassic Park - Originally a novel by Michael Crichton, it was adapted for film by Steven Spielberg in 1993.