Is it possible to clone a Dinosaur?

“Baby Dinosaurs” by currybet is marked with CC BY-SA 2.0.

By: Brian Trong-Khanh Nguyen, Journalist

People have asked if it’s possible to clone a live dinosaur. The short answer is No. Of course though might be theoretically possible, but we need to first, understand the process of cloning an animal.

How Does it Work

How the process of “cloning” works is by taking the DNA (preferably still living) of the animal of your liking, then you put the DNA inside a deprogrammed egg, you can obtain this deprogrammed egg by taking out the nucleus of the egg. You then insert the DNA into the deprogrammed egg, which will learn from the DNA to sustain whatever animal you put in the egg. Then, your animal has been successfully cloned, but it still has to grow all over again.

Now that you have a rough understanding at how the cloning process works, we can finally ask why can’t clone a dinosaur.

Why is it Impossible to Clone a Dinosaur

So, why can’t we clone a dinosaur. The reason why we can’t clone any extinct animals is simply because there was a DNA, it’s too prone contamination and scientist can’t interpret what DNA it’s from. The reason there are DNA in dinosaur remains is because bones are partly made of hydroxyapatite, which has a strong affinity for biomolecules like DNA.

But Hypothetically…

For the sake of science, let’s say we have a perfectly clean, lively dinosaur DNA. We insert the DNA inside the deprogrammed egg and it hatches successfully and you have enough food to maintain said dinosaur. If you think the dinosaur will live a happy, healthy life, you’re wrong. Since the DNA is a perfect copy, it’s not accustomed to the new environment. Carbon dioxide, oxygen, temperature, habitat, all of these factors are different from what the dinosaur was used to. This could make life impossible for the modern age dinosaur. Now if you REALLY want to raise a dinosaur, you’ll need a mass amount of meat/plants, a large place to stay, and the correct environment of said dinosaur, but this is just the bare minimum for raising a dinosaur.