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   🐟🐠🐡🐙🦑ptoothfish🦑🐙🐡🐠🐟 (ptoothfish@mastodon.nz)'s status on Sunday, 13-Jul-2025 17:41:02 JST 🐟🐠🐡🐙🦑ptoothfish🦑🐙🐡🐠🐟

   the newly de-extincted moa are sure going to enjoy wandering around all that unspoiled southern forest that hasn't been cleared and burned for grass, lumber, or mining in the last couple hundred years #nzpol

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     quixote (quixote@mastodon.nz)'s status on Sunday, 13-Jul-2025 17:41:02 JST quixote

     in reply to

     @ptoothfish That company with their "de-extincting" shtick is so full of it their eyes are brown.

     Their so-call "dire wolf" is just a wolf with dire wolf coloration and some unusual alleles. It's less similar to an actual dire wolf than I am to a neanderthal.

     The moa is a much harder task. It evolved away from currently living relatives tens of millions of years ago. The closest extant relative is the South American tinamou, the largest of which is a bit bigger than a hen.

     They'll havea hard time making a moa-sized tinamou and pretending they're done.

     (I'm an evolutionary biologist by trade, so this nonsense really gets to me!)

     Plus the nonsense of zero habitat for the poor critters.