Scientists try to bring woolly mammoth back from dead

It sounds like the film, Jurassic Park but scientists in Russia and Japan are experimenting to see if they can bring a woolly mammoth back from the dead.

Their starting point could be a fossilised thigh bone found in August which contains well-preserved bone marrow cells.

They'd be cloned and inserted into an egg of an African Elephant, the mammoth's closest surviving relative.

The woolly mammoth became extinct over 4000 years ago.

Experts think that might have happened when climate change affected the vegetation they ate.
Bringing a mammoth back won't be easy.

The Russian and Japanese scientists will need to find a suitable female elephant to have the calf but woolly mammoths were much bigger than modern elephants, so this may not be possible.

The calf would also actually be half-elephant, half-mammoth, so it wouldn't look exactly like a pre-historic mammoth.

On the other hand, we know cloning can work. The first animal to be cloned was a sheep named Dolly, in 1997, who lived to the age of six. And an extinct Pyrenean ibex was brought back from 10-year old DNA, though it didn't survive very long.

Vocabulary
Match each words to its definition
cloned / experimenting / fossilised / ibex / marrow / prehistoric / suitable

performing scientific procedures to find something out.
when a dead animal or plant has turned into rock
soft, fatty tissue in the centre of a bone
when an animal of plant has been created using the genes from another one.
acceptable or right
describes the period before there were written records
type of wild goat

True or false?

1. The cells came from a mammoth’s leg bone.
2. No one has ever cloned an animal before.
3. The scientists have found a suitable female elephant.
4. The clone would be exactly like a mammoth.
5. Woolly mammoths ate plants.
6. Mammoths and elephants are closely related.
7. The Pyrenean ibex was called Dolly.
8. Over 4,000 years ago, the climate changed.

What is the missing word?

9. They'd be cloned and __________ into an egg of an African Elephant.
10. Climate change affected the __________ they ate.
11. Woolly mammoths were much bigger than ___________ elephants.
12. The __________ would also actually be half-elephant, half-mammoth.



KEY

experimenting
performing scientific procedures to find something out.
fossilised
when a dead animal or plant has turned into rock
marrow
soft, fatty tissue in the centre of a bone
cloned
when an animal of plant has been created using the genes from another one.
suitable
acceptable or right
prehistoric
describes the period before there were written records
ibex
type of wild goat


1. True
2. False
3. False
4. False
5. True
6. True
7. False
8. True

inserted
vegetation
modern
calf