By Juliet Speedy
A group of New Zealand scientists have been part of a big breakthrough in moa DNA extraction which will enable researchers to understand the family life of moa and pinpoint when they became extinct.
In the hit Hollywood film Jurassic Park scientists develop a means of bringing dinosaurs to life using DNA taken from dinosaur blood.
And now in a world first scientists have extracted DNA from fossilised moa eggshells.
But a New Zealand scientist involved says although it's a breakthrough, it's not quite at the stage where we're about to see moas walking the earth again.
“It would be nice to have dinosaurs and moas back but I think it's pretty unlikely that it's going to happen in our lifetime,” says archaeologist Chris Jarcomb.
But the research does mark a major step towards discovering a lot more about the large flightless birds that were wiped out six or seven hundred years ago.
“Up until now it's been impossible to get DNA from an eggshell just because of the techniques that have been used,” says Mr Jarcomb.
But this technique isolating DNA from the inner membranes of a shell could tell a thousand stories.
“This is a major break through because egg shell preserves DNA much better than bone, it also allows us to preserve,” says Mr Jarcomb.
That allows them to look at the moa's environment, identify individual species and families, and its eventual demise.
The eggshells were collected from Redcliffs in Christchurch, the Catlins and Hawkes bay. The DNA from them will provide much better evidence for the time of extinction, adding another valuable chapter to our early history.
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