• Question: Are we able to bring back Dinosaurs?

    Asked by mura532tods9 to Richard B, Liam H on 9 Dec 2025.
    • Photo: Liam Herringshaw

      Liam Herringshaw answered on 9 Dec 2025:

      The simple answer is ‘no’. We’d need dinosaur DNA, and fossilized DNA only goes back a few tens of thousands of years. We don’t have any DNA fossilized from the Cretaceous, Jurassic or Triassic periods, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. HOWEVER, the alternative answer is ‘we don’t need to, as they’re still alive.’ Over the last 30 years or so, exceptionally preserved fossils, along with advances in genetic and chemical science, have led scientists to conclude that birds are part of the theropod dinosaur group. Most of the famous types of dinosaurs became extinct 66 million years ago, but a small group of feathered, flying dinosaurs survived. So when you see a robin or a herring gull or a buzzard, you can shout “DINOSAUR!”

Comments

  • Photo: Andrew M

    Andrew M commented on :

    If we were able to bring back non-avian dinosaurs, you would also need to ask if it was right to do so. In the past 65 million years the ecosystems that supported them have altered significantly, the bioscapes that supported them are either fragmented, degraded relics or gone entirely. Temperatures in the late Cretaceous period were higher than they are today, CO2 and oxygen levels were both higher. We might bring back an extinct creature only for it to spend its short and miserable life freezing, starving and suffocating, never more than than a wretched zoo exhibit.

    If we can could ensure it had the right atmosphere, food and temperatures, there would still be question of the wellfare of the animal. The nature of the fossil record means we’re still often uncertain which animals were solitary, which lived in packs, and which lived in herds. Which migrated and which lived in one place. Would we be able to provide the animal with the right company and enrichment to avoid it suffering even if we were able to provide it with all the other things it needed to live? It’s the same issue that has affected the keeping of, for example, orcas in Seaworld.
    There’s great debate regarding the ethics of bringing back even recently extinct animals like mammoths and dodos where the ecosystems still largely exist. Bringing back dinosaurs (even if possible) would go well beyond even these.