Question: I saw on the news some time ago about transferring DNA. It happened in Japan, basically they killed a male mouse and when it was dead took some of its DNA and transferred it to a female mouse and she produced a litter.Is it possible to do this with extinct animals, for example giving a saber tooth tigers DNA to another big cat?

Sarah Martin answered on 21 Jun 2012:

Hi itssmeemayaa!

That’s a really interesting question! The answer is yes, theoretically, if the sabertooth tiger and the big cat are still similar enough. But you wouldn’t get saber tooth tigers as a result – you’d get a wee mixture between the two. If the kittens go on to have kittens, some of these may be more similar to a saber tooth, or more similar to the big cat. You’d have to use cloning technology to bring back a 100% saber tooth tiger – you’d need a big cat egg with the DNA scooped out, and then put in DNA of the saber tooth tiger and make sure it starts growing into a tiger embryo. However this is very tricky and lots of things can make it not work, so there’s more work to be done if we want to get saber tooth tigres back – and I’m not sure we do actually? Who’s going to look after them?

🙂 Sarah