The blue planet we live on has been born for 4.5 billion years, and from ancient times to the present, many creatures have appeared on the earth, and many creatures have also been extinct. There are some of these creatures that we know, and some of which humans are unknown.
According to the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, nearly three species of organisms on Earth go extinct every hour, and 26,000 species disappear forever in a year, some of which are extinct before they have even been discovered by humans.
Scientists believe that since the birth of the Earth, there have been at least five mass extinctions, and each time a large number of species have disappeared forever.
So after a species goes extinct, does it disappear forever?
The answer is indeterminate. Because previous science and technology were not underdeveloped, many species can no longer appear after extinction, but since the birth of cloning technology, scientists can use the DNA of extinct organisms to clone such creatures again.
Many experts at home and abroad have carried out many experiments on cloning animals, and I believe that with the advancement of science and technology, it is possible for scientists to extract more pure and clean paleontological DNA in the future, so that the extinct paleontology will appear in front of people's eyes again.
But there is no absolute, there has been a "dead and resurrected" bird in history, in more than 100,000 years ago, this bird has been confirmed to be extinct, but after tens of thousands of years this bird has come back from the dead again and again, it is the white-throated buzzard.
The white-throated buzzard, the archaeopter who spread its wings and flew
It is not an exaggeration to say that the white-throated buzzard was resurrected in situ. About 230,000 to 130,000 years ago, a group of strange birds from Madagascar with white feathers on their necks began to spread their wings and fly.
They are a bird that migrates irregularly, and during the flight, if they find that the temperature is relatively high and the food is more abundant, they choose to stay here, and these birds are the ancestors of the white-throated buzzard.
If you look at the Archaeopteryx white-throated buzzards from the appearance, it is difficult to find that they are flying birds, because after they choose to settle in one place, most of the time they walk and move rather than spread their wings.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="49" > the aldabra islands</h1>
In fact, their flight ability is very strong, often across the sea for a long time, and when the food at the landing site is exhausted, the white-throated buzzard chicken begins a new journey. Finally, the scientists discovered that the white-throated buzzard had come to the Aldabra Islands.
Much like the Bird Island in Peru, it was a bird paradise, and there were no birds-hunting mammals on the Aldabra Islands at the time, and there were fewer natural enemies, and the Archaeopteryx decided to settle here.
Over the course of more than 100,000 years, the white-throated buzzard has gradually forgotten how to fly, and they will only run on their feet, becoming birds that cannot fly like ostriches, penguins, and owl parrots.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="53" > catastrophe 130,000 years ago</h1>
But compared to the owl parrot, the white-throated buzzards, which also do not fly, are obviously masters of body management, their bodies are very slender and well-proportioned, they maintain self-disciplined habits every day, and they walk on the island every day to forage for exercise.
But a sudden catastrophe 130,000 years ago shattered the calm here, with a roaring tsunami caused by plate movements hitting the Aldabra Islands.
The island sank below sea level, and the white-throated buzzard, which could not swim and was incapacitated, became extinct.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="57" > resurrected white-throated buzzard</h1>
About 100,000 years ago, the Aldabra Islands, which were also squeezed by the earth's continental plates, rose from the seabed to the surface of the sea again, and strangely, the white-throated buzzard that went extinct 130,000 years ago was resurrected here.
Creatures that have been determined to be extinct are resurrected, which is simply an aggressive and strange thing. But this kind of thing has really happened. For example, in the late 1930s, biologists discovered coelacanths that had become extinct in the Cretaceous period in the coastal areas of South Africa.
This extinct creature that came back from the dead has returned to the dead, and the scientific community refers to this creature collectively as the "Lazarus species", Chinese literally translated as the mysterious species that came back from the dead.
Darwin believed that extinct species do not have the ability to survive on the earth, lose the ability to survive, so over time will be eliminated by the natural world, which is also the general law of the biological world. But the extinct white-throated buzzard has come back from the dead, what is going on?
Earlier, many scientists believed that the reason why the Lazarus species did not go extinct and could come back from the dead was because there were a small number of individuals living elsewhere, so the white-throated buzzard died and came back to life.
So paleontologists speculate that this is likely to be the case: 100,000 years ago, the Aldabra Archipelago once again emerged from the sea, and Madagascar still has flying white-throated buzzards, which once again migrated to the Aldabra Islands and gradually evolved into flightless white-throated buzzards.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="64" > iteratively evolved white-throated buzzard</h1>
In order to test their conjecture, scientists began to search for white-throated buzzard fossils in two different areas of the Aldabra Archipelago, and determined the appearance time of white-throated buzzard fossils in two areas, which appeared before the island sank and after the island sank.
Finally, it was found that the fossil wing bones and ankle bones of the white-throated buzzard in both regions were similar in features, and neither of them had the ability to fly. The white-throated buzzard has really been "resurrected" in situ.
In fact, the resurrection process of the white-throated buzzard is a manifestation of iterative evolution. That is, the same species, at different times and in the same place, evolved towards the same evolutionary outcome.
Scientists have verified that the white-throated buzzard that later flew from Madagascar has completed its evolution in less than 20,000 years and has slowly become a white-throated buzzard that cannot fly.
Subsequently, scientists found that the white-throated buzzard has become extinct at least three times in tens of thousands of years, and after that, the white-throated buzzard in Madagascar will go here to complete its evolution. It seems that the white-throated buzzard, the ancestor of more than 100,000 years ago, really liked this place.
So will dinosaurs be resurrected in this iterative evolutionary way? In fact, during the period when dinosaurs lived, there have been earth-shaking changes in the environment, climate, and temperature of the present.
Nowadays, it is difficult to reproduce the landform, climate and other factors of ancient times, and no matter how scientific progress is, dinosaurs will not be resurrected in situ like white-throated buzzards. What do you think? The picture comes from the Network, and the intrusion must be deleted.