Hypothetical Project - Creating a Dinosaur-like Chicken

[Florida Bullfrog]

Parrot Beak Asils look even more like Terror Bird

View attachment 3280638


View attachment 3280639

The parrotbeaks always reminded me more of dinosaurs.

 

[AGeese]

I hope one day they can be imported. I would like to introduce a Maylay or Liege Fighter into my planned project for Buckeye/Svarthona.

 

[AGeese]

Actually, not so much: we don't have any genomic data from terror birds, and we also don't have a convenient source of eggs in which to gestate them. (Even the extant ratites we do have, like ostrich and emus, are quite distant relatives and can't necessarily be expected to provide a suitable developmental environment for a terror bird in the egg--maternal egg yolk provisioning can vary quite substantially among species! The closest living relative is probably seriemas, which are much smaller than any terror bird species.)

If you were going to try and de-extinct a large terrestrial bird, your best bet is probably moa, but even that is going to be considerably harder than playing with various developmental gene expression factors to try and re-engineer teeth out of a beak or encourage distal claw growth on wings. We are not anywhere near successful "de-extinction" of any species, even those we have complete (or complete-ish) ancient genomes from.

On the scientific end of things, the draw is mostly using the "cool factor" of the project to justify funds to learn more about gene expression during development and how transcription factor expression and gene regulation can contribute to complex phenotypes. It's all developmental genetics. You're not going to learn much about dinosaurs qua dinosaurs from the project: as far as evolutionary biologists are concerned, any chicken is a perfectly representative dinosaur already just as it is.

I was going to say and then read your last paragraph, Horner isn't reproducing any particular dino, just funnin' for science.

We could start with Seriema and breed for size, there's another decendant species too, but I forget. Maybe the Secretary Bird?

Speaking of ground hawks, have you seen the Northern Crested Caracara? It's actually a Falcon that likes to spend a lot of time on the ground and really has that look.

 

[nicalandia]

Aseel look very terror-bird like when they’re young.

My Young Rajah Chicks looked had a very Terror Bird look..

 

[AGeese]

Those feet. Where are they now?

 

[nicalandia]

Those feet. Where are they now?

They found a new Home.

This is one of the males at 5 month old, 5 pounds

 

[Egg Snatcher]

Cool project!
Are you wanting the “claws” of the chicken to be more pronounced? Heres a concern to think about, are they in the future (if project works) going to develop behavior more like a dinosaur?

I could of sworn I seen parrot beak aseel hatching eggs on eBay, but I looked again and didn’t see them so I may of just been crazy.

 

[EEforMe]

We are not anywhere near successful "de-extinction" of any species, even those we have complete (or complete-ish) ancient genomes from.

Actually, not so long ago a species of goat called Pyrenean ibex was brought back for a couple of minutes. The species went extinct in 2000 and they used another ibex species to birth the baby, which died quickly after birth because it “had been born with an extra lobe in her left lung, which took up too much space in her chest and kept the left lung from inflating properly.” The quote is from this website. It’s sad that we didn’t quite make it happen but it’s also really cool how close we came!

 

[AGeese]

I don't think they're going to clone anything, just try to switch genes off/on.

 

[nicalandia]

I don't think they're going to clone anything, just try to switch genes off/on.

True, Chickens are Dinosours already