Special: Animal Science

SAS MORTAROTTI: Hey I'm Sas and welcome to this BTN science special all about animals. Coming up, we'll find out what a team of scientists are doing to try and bring back the woolly mammoth and hear all about a competition to try and communicate with animals

OCEAN CENSUS

SAS: But first we're heading to the ocean. As we know the world's oceans are full of strange and fascinating creatures, many of which have never been seen by humans. But a project called Ocean Census is setting out to find as many of them as possible, here's Wren.

WREN GILLET: For a very long time, this shark was a nobody, in that well, nobody had ever seen her, nobody had even uttered her name. But recently that all changed. Thanks to a global marine mission called the Ocean Census! This team of scientists have been scouring the depths and shallows of the Earth's oceans, looking for never-before-seen creatures. Like this Squat Lobster, this little sea star and this deep-sea Limpet. In fact, they've just described more than 800 new species, and they're just getting started.

DR MICHELLE TAYLOR, PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: It's the largest initiative of its kind in the marine environment that's ever existed.

Ocean Census began back in 2023, when a group of scientists from the UK and Japan teamed up, and since then, it's launched 10 expeditions, using divers, submarines, and deep-sea robots that can reach depths of up 4,990 meters! Yeah.

DR MICHELLE TAYLOR: There are 24 scientists from over a dozen countries and we split into two 12 hour shifts because the remote operated vehicle can work for 24 hours.

You see, no one actually knows that much about what's down here. The Earth's oceans are thought to contain around 80 per cent of life on the planet, but we've only discovered about 10 per cent. What we have found is pretty interesting.

Think massive long-legged crabs, invisible fishies, goblin-like sharks, leafy sea dragons and ahh blobs. And while the search for new ocean life is nothing new, Ocean Census is trying to speed things up.

DR MICHELLE TAYLOR: So historically, species discovery — It's a tedious, like slow, painstaking process, like the average time period between something being collected and described in an academic publication is 13 years.

And according to Dr Taylor, there's a really good reason to hurry up. You see, global warming is having a huge effect on the life down here.

Water is really great at absorbing heat, and it's been doing a lot more of it since we started burning fossil fuels. Our oceans have gradually been getting warmer, more acidic, and less oxygenated.

ANNA VESANEN, OCEAN CENSUS MARINE BIOLOGIST: There might be already species that we don't know and are already gone, or going, extinct.

This means we might never know or learn about the creatures we share our planet with. And we could also miss out on their superpowers, well, sort of. You see experts speculate that some deep-sea creatures could hold life-saving medical properties! But more than that, it would be a loss to planet Earth.

PROF JON COPLEY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON: Every species that we find is part of the library of the ingenuity of nature. That is why deep-sea biodiversity matters and why we should continue to protect it for the future.

By 2033, The Ocean Census plans to identify one hundred thousand new species! So stay tuned for the next blockbuster release in this ongoing underwater saga.

Quiz

How much of the Earths surface is covered by water? 81%, 71%, or 91%?

It's 71%

WOOLLY MAMMOTH

Now to some mammoth news, Seriously, it's about mammoths and one US company's quest to bring them back. Justina found out more.

JUSTINA WARD: The woolly mammoth, titans of the Ice Age. Roamed the Northern Hemisphere until they vanished around 4,000 years ago. But now in the name of science they have returned. Well sort of? Meet the woolly mouse created by US biotechnology company Colossal.

BEN LAM, COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES CEO: They were significantly cuter than we, I guess originally anticipated.

But these 'lil fluffballs are more than just cute, they're actually a mammoth step forward in Colossal's grand plan to bring a woolly mammoth-like creature back to Earth.

BEN LAM: We actually engineered mouse-equivalent of mammoth genes that we've identified on our quest to bring back the mammoth.

Yep, Ben and his team have used a lot of time and a lot of science to edit the genes of these mice so that their fur has almost the exact same traits as the woolly mammoth.

BETH SHAPRIO, CHIEF SCIENTIST COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES: We focused mostly on woolly hair and also a gene that's associated with fat.

And their plan is to eventually try the same thing on an Asian elephant to create a modern day mammoth-like animal that can live in Arctic conditions.

BEN LAM: Asian elephants are closer genetically to mammoths than Asian elephants are to African elephants. It's not possible to clone an extinct species. It is possible to do functional de-extinction, where we're bringing back those core phenotypes or physical traits, and then looking at those traits that that we can then rewild back into their natural habitat.

So why go to all that effort?

BEN LAM: We're looking to lose up to 50 percent of all biodiversity between now and 2050 if we don't do anything.

Yeah, because of things like climate change and habitat loss from human impact species extinctions are happening faster than ever. And these scientists reckon what they're working on today could end up helping endangered species in the future.

BETH SHAPIRO: We know that ecosystems that are more biodiverse are more robust and resilient. And we hope that by re-establishing these interactions, by protecting species from becoming extinct, we will protect and preserve biodiversity that will help stabilize ecosystems and stop the loss of species today.

And they're not stopping at the mammoth. They're also planning to bring back the dodo which once roamed the island of Mauritius. And they're even working with Aussie scientists to bring back Australia's thylacine also known as the Tassie tiger which went extinct almost 90 years ago.

T-REX, JURASSIC PARK: RAAAAAWWW

But not everyone's convinced this is a good idea.

JEFF GOLDBLUM, JURASSIC PARK: Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

In fact, some experts reckon extinctions are a normal part of the evolutionary process and reintroducing extinct species could mess up current ecosystems. While others say genetically modifying animals raises some ethical concerns and that the time and resources spent on de-extinction could be better used to protect and conserve existing endangered species and their habitats.

VINCENT LYNCH, BIOLOGIST, UNIVERSITY OF BUFFALO: Even if you could do that to an Asian elephant, that's not resurrecting anything, that's taking mouse mutations and putting it into an elephant.

For now Colossal still has a lot to figure out and it'll probably be a while before we see something like this roaming Earth again. In the meantime, can we see those mice again? Ah they're just so cute.

Did you know

Did you know? The last known Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, died in captivity on September 7, 1936, at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, Tasmania.

ANIMAL COMMUNICATIONS

Ever wished you could talk to animals? Well Scientists are working on it and now a major competition is offering a huge cash prize for anyone who can crack the code on interspecies communication, take a look

PRINCESS: If you listen closely, you'll hear their voices, their songs. Ahh, music to my ears. Oh, hello there, how are you?

BIRD: Yeah, I'm good mate how are you going?

PRINCESS: Oh, I wasn't quite expecting that accent.

BIRD: Yeah, nah, it's quite common around these…

WREN GILLETT, REPORTER: Okay, while talking to animals might seem like something only fictional characters can do. It's an idea scientists are taking seriously.

Over the years we've discovered lots about the ways animals communicate. Take octopuses for example. They can change the colour and texture of their skin to communicate mood.

PRINCESS: Other animals use their voices, like us.

BIRD: weird noises

Male humpbacks sing long, detailed songs during mating season. And some animals even use names. Like elephants and dolphins.

A while ago, scientists worked out that each individual dolphin whistles something completely unique to them. Something called a signature whistle.

LAELA SAYIGH, PROFESSOR OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR: So, these are these individually specific whistles that are very much like our names.

This is Laela. She's been researching dolphins for 40 years. And recently, her research team won the first phase of a competition called the Coller Dolittle Prize. It's a massive competition, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars to scientists who can help us get closer to…

BIRD: Talking to us animals.

PRINCESS: Yes. What he said.

LAELA SAYIGH: So, the whistles have very distinctive shapes that we call contours, and they really are just so distinctive.

Laela says when dolphins aren't busy saying their own names, the other whistles they make might actually mean something. She thinks these non-signature whistles could work a bit like words. Like for instance, sounding an alarm.

LAELA SAYIGH: When I first saw that, I honestly thought I was going crazy. I just thought I've never seen anything like this. I almost thought nobody was going to even believe me that I was seeing it.

But there's still so much we don't know. Which is why some researchers are enlisting the help of AI. Like Yossi, he's part of the team who started the Dolittle Prize, and recently, he's been studying the language of bats.

YOSSI YOVEL, PROFESSOR IN ZOOLOGY: We put bats in large cages for a short period we video them continuously and record everything.

Yossi and his team recorded 15,000 vocalisations of bats, along with who was making the call, who to, and what the bats were doing when they made the call.

YOSSI YOVEL: And then we fed this into an AI machine. So, AI is a big advantage in that indeed it is very good at trying to identify patterns that might be hidden.

What they found after it was given the detailed data, was that the AI could take a random sample and say who was calling, the context of the call, whether the bats were fighting or playing, and in some instances who the call was addressed to.

YOSSI YOVEL: But again we're humans and often we don't understand exactly what the animal is doing. So, I mean collecting data and filtering the data and annotating the data. That's all very, very challenging.

Right now, researchers say it will be a long time before humans, not just fairytale princesses, can properly talk to animals. But they say everything we're learning is important.

LAELA SAYIGH: I think that the more we learn about animals, it can only increase everyone's empathy for them.

BIRD: Alright then. I'll see ya round princess.

PRINCESS: Oh of course, I'll speak to you later. goodbye now.

BIRD: Have a great week princess, It's been great chatting to you. Always love chatting to you…

Closer

Well that's all we have for this Science special, you can check out more specials like this one on our website and I'll see you next time. Bye!