birds park

Phoenix Rising Reserve

The passenger pigeon's natural habitat is a swamp like climate with large oak and pine trees.They build nests high in the trees.

The Labrador Duck is a duck of many names often referred to as the ‘pied duck’ or ‘skunk duck’ because of its contrasting black and white appearance.

The Heath hen’s habitat is sandy grass plains in coastal areas with an available diet of grasshoppers and berries.

Info

Labrador Duck The last sighting of this species was in 1878. This species was the first North American bird to go extinct. DNA is available from eggs kept in a museum. To make sure the eggs were actually Labrador Duck eggs, the duck specimen was compared to three mitochondrial genes. Our surrogate and closest living relative is the Steller’s Eider duck. The natural habitat of the Labrador Duck is sandy coasts , harbors with an available diet of shellfish and crustaceans.

DNA Transfer To achieve bringing these extinct animals back to life, we were able to use an enucleated egg cell from the surrogate of each animal, fused to the nucleus of a somatic cell.

Labrador Duck

The last sighting of this species was in 1878. DNA is available from eggs kept in a museum. To make sure the eggs were actually Labrador Duck eggs, the duck specimen was compared to three mitochondrial genes. Our surrogate and closest living relative is the Steller’s Eider duck. Their natural habitat is sandy coasts , harbors with an available diet of shellfish and crustaceans.

Passenger Pigeon

Extinct in 1914, it's DNA is available from museum specimens. Our surrogate and closest living relative in the Band-tailed pigeon.

Heath Hen

Extinct in 1932. DNA is available from museum specimens. Our surrogate for the Heath hen is the Greater prairie chicken which is it’s closest living relative.