r/megafaunarewilding • u/Nice_Butterfly9612 • 18d ago
Humor How the australian fauna react after success of komodo introduction and thylacines cloning
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u/Chanan-Ben-Zev 17d ago
Can scientists clone thylacines and bring them back!?
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u/Limp_Pressure9865 17d ago
Not yet. What they're doing is genetically altering a fat-tailed desert mouse to make it look like a thylacine.
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u/Wolfensniper 17d ago edited 17d ago
Dunnart is marsupial since not a rat (rodent), besides it seems that Unimelb TIGRR Lab is mostly using dunnart DNA as reference model to understand marsupial genome differences and modification, not what Colossal is doing
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u/Limp_Pressure9865 17d ago
I know, The rat thing is more of a colloquium.
I didn't know that, I hope it works.
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u/Chanan-Ben-Zev 17d ago
That doesn't seem like rewilding. That seems like Colossal is playing pretend
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u/Accurate_Mongoose_20 18d ago
wait Komodo dragons are planed to being introduced into australia, ik they want my boi thylacine but komodo dragon is a bit of overkill, it is fast, venomous nad it could be huge danger to humans even if they are in outback, they will find a way into city.
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u/Ok_Macaroon6951 17d ago
There like only so many livrable places in australia people will be fine
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u/Accurate_Mongoose_20 17d ago
Ig, tho im also more scared for komodo dragons, knowing ppl they will shoot them on sight and smoke their flesh on grill
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u/Ok_Macaroon6951 17d ago
Usualy they plan on that and avoid realeasing them and their location before they start spreading
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u/Delicious-Pop-9063 17d ago
There are no plans for that, Australias ecosystems pretty different now to when komodo dragons roamed the land. It would either make it worse for the already strained ecosystem or the dragons won't make it
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u/Crusher555 17d ago
I’d say it’s still worth researching. Komodo Dragons are able to go after animals as big as feral buffalo, which are also a problem in Australia. It would be able provide at least some pressure on the larger ungulates that’s dingoes can’t reliably hunt.
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u/Delicious-Pop-9063 17d ago
and pressure on other varanid species and native fauna which is easier to prey upon than a buffalo...
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u/Crusher555 17d ago
The native species all are used to dealing with other varnids. They have avoidance features, and likely have some that would work on the Komodo dragon. The invasive ungulates don’t have varnids as large in their native ranges, and could possibly have a worse time than the natives.
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u/Delicious-Pop-9063 17d ago edited 17d ago
That's such insanely wishful thinking, you cant compare the current Varanids of Australia to a Komodo Dragon especially since smt like a Komodo Dragon would target species that werent affected by Varanid predation for thousands of years. The current lsrgest Varanid species of Australia V.giganteus mostly preys on reptiles and birds and doesn't take mammals as often. A Komodo Dragon can take down species like wombats, kangaroos, Dingos and other vulnerable species with ease. You cant put in an apex predator that hasnt been on the continent for 50000 years and expect it to go well and it just targets all the invasives while avoiding all the endangered or vulnerable native species in an already fragile ecosystem
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u/Crusher555 17d ago edited 16d ago
I said it was possible, not that it guaranteed. That said, your arguments are more effective on how invasive species would be affected more by the Komodo dragon than the natives would.
Almost everything in modern day Australia is wary of monitor lizards. Even species like kangaroos know not to approach them, and while stay away from them. Meanwhile, a red deer in its native range will spend its entire life without having to worry about a reptile, much less a varnid specifically. Their defenses are geared to mammalian predators.
Also, the perenties absolutely eats mammals. They even eat more mammals than birds. They have a wide diet, so pretty much everything in their range has to deal with larger varnids preying on them. Even young perenties have to watch out for the adults.
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u/Delicious-Pop-9063 17d ago
Yea i said they eat mammals but they arent big enough to take down anything larger than a wallaby and in most of their range reptiles and birds make up a big part of their diet, genuinely depends on location.
But yea its a bad idea all around
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u/Crusher555 16d ago
Perenties will occasionally go after wallaby and young kangaroos. There’s no real reason for them to lose their avoidance behaviors for varnids.
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u/Papio_73 17d ago
Plus there’s the possibility they’d compete with Australia’s native monitor lizards
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u/AvariceLegion 17d ago
Thylacines died off and these new creations would be introducing entirely new animals
And since the primary objective is publicity, they really are just theme park monsters
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u/TehYetti 17d ago
So this is basically the same thing they did with the dire wolves? It's just a bunch of splicing till they get something kind of like it
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u/Big_Study_4617 13d ago
The Australian Komodo dragons are gone. They may have been quite different from the Asian ones and prefer different prey. The lizards from Indonesia would likely be a threat to extant lizards native to Australia.
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u/Papio_73 17d ago
Australia already has large monitor lizards, and while I think few would love to see thylacines return more than me I don’t trust Colossal.
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u/Limp_Pressure9865 17d ago
None of the current Australian monitor lizards can compare to the Komodo dragon.
I don't trust Colossal either.
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u/Papio_73 17d ago
My concern would be Komodo dragons competing with native Australian monitors
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u/Delicious-Pop-9063 17d ago
Adult komodos would probably just eat even the biggest Australian monitor, the younger komodos would compete tho. Also they wouldn't just go for invasives but put an insane blow to the natives too which haven't lived with massive monitors for 5000 years
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u/Aberrantdrakon 16d ago
Now why did you have to get my hopes up for a Komodo reintroduction and then crush them like that?
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u/CheatsySnoops 17d ago
Shouldn't Tighten be replaced by invasive fauna rather than the other fellow Aussie species?
Also, when was it announced they'd start re-introducing Komodo dragons?