December 12, 2025 • 35 mins
A second serving of bone banter with two of the museum’s veteran vertebrate virtuosos. How are charisma, colonialism, and extinction linked? What is de-extinction, and will cloning mammoths save the tundra? Featuring Matt Lamanna, Mary R. Dawson Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, and John Wible, Curator of Mammals at Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Michael Pisano (00:09):
You're listening to the Anthropocene Archives, a
presentation of We Are Nature.
In this special series ofstories, we're delving deep into
Carnegie Museum of NaturalHistory's 22 million collection
items, raiding cabinets andcases, sifting through objects
and organisms in search ofstories of stewardship,
solutions, and scientificwonder.
(00:31):
On today's episode, a secondserving of Bone Banter with two
of the museum's veteranvertebrate virtuosos.
John Wible (00:38):
I'm John Wargel, curator of mammals, and I study
everything about mammals, theirorigin, their evolution, their
distribution on the planettoday.
Matt Lamanna (00:48):
And I'm Matt Lamana, curator of vertebrate
paleontology, and I studydinosaurs in particular, and
especially dinosaurs from thesouthern hemisphere continents
at the end of the age ofdinosaurs.
Michael Pisano (00:59):
Last time we talked about how some Cretaceous
creatures survived massextinction.
Today we're skipping forwardsome 65 million years to discuss
a much more recent extinction,biodiversity conservation today,
and perhaps even de-extinctiontomorrow.
We're picking up right where weleft off last time, starting
(01:20):
right now with the collectionitems that Dr.
Weibel brought to share.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
Collection item one and collection item two are
presented together forcomparison.
Both are skulls, and bothmeasure six inches from back to
snout.
At first glance, you mightassume that both skulls belong
to the same species, but closeinspection of details might lead
(01:54):
to a different conclusion.
Examine the teeth.
While skull A has 46 teeth,skull B has but 42.
And while both skulls supportsharp canines, only skull B has
carnassial teeth.
Now that you're looking closely,notice how skull A has a
(02:17):
relatively smaller frame casethan skull B.
Turn the skulls upside down, andyou'll see that only one has
palatal vacuities.
Interesting.
Small differences aside, thesimilarity between these skulls
is striking.
(02:37):
Can you identify collectionitems one and two?
Michael Pisano (02:47):
What do we have on the table here?
John Wible (02:48):
So I have um two skulls here.
The one on the right is actuallyof a of an extinct uh mammal
called a thylosine, also knownas a Tasmanian wolf or Tasmanian
tiger, because they had stripeson their bodies.
And on the left-hand side is awolf.
I'm sorry, it's not a wolf, it'sa fox.
(03:12):
It's small.
It's actually a red fox.
And the reason why we I'mshowing these together is that
this represents an amazingexample of convergence in form.
So these are remarkably similarlooking skulls when you look at
this, these two here.
(03:32):
You'd be hard pressed in thisview to find features that
really distinguish them verymuch.
However, if I flip them over andwe look at the other side, we're
going to look at the palate onthese things.
This is where you should go, ohmy goodness, these don't look at
all similar.
So, of course, the first thingthat your eyes might go to are
(03:55):
these funny holes that are inthe back of the palate of the
thylocene, which I forgot topoint out is a marsupial that
was found in Australia and uhand environs historically.
Uh there's no such largeopenings in the palate of this
fox.
The other thing that's reallyquite striking is how different
(04:16):
the teeth are.
So the the teeth here on thethylosine really don't look
anything like the teeth on theuh on this fox.
So you might imagine thatthey're not necessarily eating
the same thing.
And they probably were noteating the same thing.
So that's the quick and dirtygeneral overview of what we've
(04:38):
got.
Michael Pisano (04:39):
Beautiful.
Let's fill in the picture ofwhat this organism was like in
life, the thylosine.
Matt Lamanna (04:43):
Can you kind of talk about, you know, you
mentioned Australia and likewhat they even looked like in
terms of like coloration andthings like that.
John Wible (04:51):
So um, this actually is a juvenile.
Matt Lamanna (04:53):
Yeah.
John Wible (04:53):
So this is not an adult, and the reason we know
that is that there's a tooth inthere that that is still
forming.
Oh wow, very cool.
And in fact, you can see in thelower jaw that tooth is coming
in.
So, as with all marsupials,well, most marsupials, this
actually has four molars.
Michael Pisano (05:12):
Okay.
John Wible (05:13):
And it's so you see these teeth at the back that
look like carbon copies of eachother.
And so there are four there.
There are only three herebecause the fourth has not come
in.
So in in life, this will be, asan adult, this would be a larger
animal.
So it's more dog-sized than itis fox-sized.
Um, there was quite a bit ofsexual dimorphism between males
(05:35):
and females.
And so the the females wereprobably like more dingo size,
or maybe a little bit smallerthan a dingo.
And the males might have been alittle bit bigger than a dingo.
Now, one of the more amazingthings about these animals is
their gape.
Yeah, I was gonna I was gonnabring that up if you didn't see.
(05:57):
So, how wide can they open theirmouth?
They they go through 80 degrees.
Oh wow.
So, you know, here's 90 degrees,right?
So they're opening their mouthabout like that.
SPEAKER_03 (06:08):
That's incredible.
John Wible (06:09):
Um, I meant to look up what we might be uh going,
but I don't know.
45 degrees?
Uh-huh.
60 maybe?
I doubt maybe 60.
But anyway, so the thepredictions in terms of um, and
and we also know what they atebecause they humans were around.
Michael Pisano (06:26):
That's right.
We even have uh film strip ofthese things.
Matt Lamanna (06:29):
We have films of things.
I was gonna say there's a famousbit of footage that shows, I
think it may have been the lastThylocene in captivity doing one
of its full mouth gapes.
That is that is the last one.
Amazing to see the the gape ofthese things.
Michael Pisano (06:43):
And then my understanding is they're also
nocturnal, right?
John Wible (06:46):
They were nocturnal, exactly.
Michael Pisano (06:47):
There's kind of this mystery around them, right?
Like a dingo is maybe more of aknown quantity, right?
And it's also got a commensalrelationship going back with
humans.
Exactly.
Right.
And this is a thing that's outthere at night.
It's got a funny big wide mouththat shows you all its teeth.
Right.
Um, my understanding is that thenoise they made was a little bit
stranger than maybe a canid, adog.
John Wible (07:08):
Right.
They don't really bark.
There's no arf arf kind ofthing.
Matt Lamanna (07:12):
Apparently they smelled pretty bad too.
Yeah, I don't know where thatwhere I'm getting that from.
But they yeah, like they had avery distinct, I'm not smelled
bad, but had a distinctive odor,supposedly.
John Wible (07:23):
So they they were they were very dog-like looking,
but if you watch them move, ifyou watch these movies that are
wonderful to see, they they hada very stiff tail.
So if you think of your dog asbeing happy and it's wagging
itself, their tail just sort oftrailed behind them and they
look very stiff at the back ofthe body, and it's the the back
(07:46):
half of the body where there arestripes.
Matt Lamanna (07:49):
Um the rest of the the reason why the another name
that people may have heard ofthem is Tasmanian tiger, they're
sometimes referred to Tasmanianwolf, Tasmanian tiger, if that
was another you know, nocturnalhunting, kind of scary, a
man-eater, right?
Michael Pisano (08:03):
An animal with a narrative behind it that uh, you
know, people I think want tokeep at a distance or spin kind
of a fear-based narrativearound.
Um, and so there is definitelypart of this story that's about
charisma and knowing an animalversus fearing what you don't
know about an animal.
Matt Lamanna (08:22):
I remember reading the story of the Thalocene as a
kid.
I was growing, I grew up in the80s.
Um, and to me, over time, justbecause it was this absolutely
remarkable animal that was, youknow, evolutionarily speaking,
something like a kangaroo tryingto be a wolf, you know, um, this
thing that had it is one of themost phenomenal examples of one
(08:45):
of the most interestingphenomena in evolution to me,
and that's convergence.
You know, like different uh, youknow, uh organisms from
different ancestries evolvingsimilar features because they're
doing more or less the same jobin the environment.
And, you know, so here's ananimal that that came from, you
know, marsupial ancestors, was amarsupial itself, but yet
evolved, as John said, you know,dog-like, wolf-like, um, uh,
(09:07):
even tiger-like in some ways,characteristics.
Uh, to me, it was the posterchild for convergent evolution,
um, which was fascinating to me.
But it also, when I learned itsstory, also became the poster
child for, you know, it wasn'tcalled that back then, but
Anthropocene Extinction for theSixth Extinction.
Um, and so I will go out on alimb here and reveal what a
(09:28):
gigantic dork I am.
But the first time I ever held aThalosene skull was in my
collaborator's lab in Australiain the in the late uh late
2000s, late 2000s.
So I was already very much anadult and I cried because this
animal to me is so uh meaningfulthat way.
And and and um I think all thetime about I was born in 1975,
(09:50):
1936, the last one.
I missed it by what is that, 39years?
Um, and it became to me when Istarted talking about like
teaching uh college studentsabout the history of life when I
was in grad school, I wouldalways end on, you know, my
class that I taught was Earthand Life Through Time, and I
would always end on, you know,the sixth extinction, basically,
(10:11):
and be like, look at this thingthat I didn't miss by much, that
you didn't miss by much, and nowlook at, you know, say a
Sumatran rhino or a giant pandaor any of these beautiful
animals that are criticallyendangered.
How will you feel to look yourgrandkids in the eye and say, I
could have saved this, but Ididn't know what it's like.
John Wible (10:51):
And uh talk about Australia.
So Australia was this umcontinent that split off from
Antarctica and the rest ofGondwana at some point
historically.
And the fauna, the mammal faunathat got into Australia before
it split off was reallydominated by animals today that
(11:11):
we would call marsupials ormarsupial relatives.
Uh so today here in in westernPennsylvania, we do have
marsupials.
We have the Virginia opossum.
Uh we're very lucky to havethat, but the bulk of the
diversity of living marsupialsare either in Australia or in
South America.
Um, most mainly in Australia.
(11:33):
So they're there, that's wherethe the vast, um the largest
number of species would be inAustralia.
So historically, this animal wasthe well, it wasn't the top
predator, but towards the end ofthe time when humans are
starting to get in there, it wasthe top predator.
There was a marsupial lion thatwas lion-size, that was the top
(11:57):
predator, um, but they wereknocked out as by a lot of the
large fauna around the world,probably as a result of humans.
Um here we are.
So let's say we're about 3,000years ago in Australia.
Um there were Thylacenes.
Uh they would have been the toppredator.
(12:18):
Uh they were actually in NewGuinea as well.
They were not just in Australia,and they were also in a large
island that sticks off thesouthern border of Australia,
that's an Australian statecalled Tasmania, about the size
of West Virginia.
Then what happened is now humanshad already gotten to Australia.
(12:40):
So there are a concept of twomajor waves of migration to
Australia.
There's one about 50,000 yearsago, and then there's one that's
more in the neighborhood ofabout 3,000 years ago.
And the ones that were 3,000years ago brought dogs with
them.
Dingoes, exactly.
They brought dingoes with them.
(13:01):
And so it's it the concept isthat historically the dingos
were seen as the culprits forthe demise of the thyrocine on
mainland Australia.
And our views today are quitedifferent on this.
Um, it's it's again, we don'tthink there's one size fits all
(13:24):
for everything.
Certainly the dingoes were acontributing factor, humans were
a factor.
Um, but another big factor wasactually climate change.
Yeah, so so it turns out that ummost people are familiar with
the this um Pacific currentcalled the El Nino current.
(13:46):
And what happens is that the ElNino years make it very wet in
the United States and North andSouth America, but they make it
very dry in Australia.
So it changes the air currentsand ocean currents.
Um there is some predictionsthat showed that during this
(14:08):
time period, this 3,000-yeartime period, there were severe
droughts in Australia.
So that scene is a contributingfactor.
So the thylines, thylosines wereactually quite diverse.
There wasn't just one kind ofthylosene, there were quite a
number of different kinds ofthylosines.
But ultimately, by about 3,000years ago, they were gone from
(14:30):
mainland Australia and NewGuinea.
So their one refuge was inTasmania.
So now we have to go and look alittle bit about Tasmania and
what we know about Tasmania.
So Tasmania was first uhdiscovered by Europeans in 1642.
SPEAKER_03 (14:50):
Okay.
John Wible (14:50):
A guy by the name of Abel Tasman, who was a Dutch
explorer.
And it was actually named forthe owner of the ship company
that was Van Diemen's Land,doesn't it?
It was Van Diemen's Land.
SPEAKER_03 (15:05):
Yeah, Van Diemen's Land.
Which is wonderful.
John Wible (15:06):
Actually, it was Anthony Van Diemen's Land.
And it got shortened to VanDiemen's Land.
So Anthony's Van Diemen Land.
I mean, what a what a mouthful.
When it was found, they didn'tknow it was an island.
They actually, so it was justland.
So they thought it was probablyjust part of Australia.
(15:28):
And it wasn't for 150 years thatsomebody actually sailed around
it and discovered that it was anisland.
Now it didn't get a name changeto Tasmania until like the
1850s.
Okay.
And that was that was theAustralian government or
actually the British governmentthat affected that change.
(15:49):
So the first the first coloniesin Tasmania date to 1803.
And as with Australia, the majormake of those colonies were
convicts.
So there was a heavy convictpopulation that were the early
colonists on Tasmania.
(16:12):
And then by just within 20 yearsof the original colonies, there
were about 12,000 people inTasmania and 200,000 sheep.
Michael Pisano (16:29):
An important part of the story.
John Wible (16:30):
And that's an incredibly important part of the
story.
Michael Pisano (16:33):
Before we get to that, can I quickly ask you
what?
So we're looking at the teethright now, and I wonder what we
know about their diet.
Uh, because I think that therewas a thought that perhaps they
were eating sheep, but what doyou actually think they were
eating?
John Wible (16:48):
So, in terms of but people have done like um uh
analyses that they look at thestrength of the jaw and this and
that, and there's no way thatthese things could have been
eating sheep.
They just they were solitaryhunters.
The dingoes were pack hunters,yeah.
So the dingoes were going over,going after larger things than
(17:10):
them because they were a packhunter.
The thylacenes were actuallygoing for much smaller prey.
And so, how this goes back tothe to the story is that um you
know very quickly the populationwent, the human population
expanded, and the number ofsheep farms expanded, and there
(17:32):
was an incredible uh pressurefirst on the aboriginal
population.
So in the um 1820s and then intothe early 1830s, there was
something that became known asthe Black War, where um the
British colonists actuallynearly totally wiped out the
(17:53):
Aboriginal population.
Uh, there are very few that wereleft at the end of that war.
So we go back in terms ofestimates of population size.
So the first Europeans come inin 1803, the estimation of the
Aboriginal population at thattime was about 5,000.
Similar estimates for thePhilocene were about 5,000 at
(18:17):
that time.
Michael Pisano (18:43):
For most of the time people lived there,
Lutruita was connected tomainland Australia.
Rising sea levels turned it intoan island around 6,000 BCE, and
genetic studies suggest that thePalawa were isolated for 8,000
years before Europeancolonization.
It's hard to conceive of 8,000years, much less 40,000 years.
(19:06):
The Pala's ancestors lived onLutruita for at least 1,500
generations.
They weathered two ice agesthere.
We know that they used fire tomanage the land.
We know that they made tools formany materials, including glass
made in a meteorite impact.
We know that Lutrovita had manycultures, each with their own
(19:29):
myths and traditions and ways ofrelating to the land.
If you want to learn more aboutthe Palawa and Lutruita's
history, we'll leave some linksin the episode description.
John Wible (19:49):
So now we're gonna, you know, we're gonna change the
total layout of the land interms of the having all these
sheep farms and farmers that aregonna be.
Protective of their livelihood.
And the thyosene started gettinga bad rap as being something
(20:09):
that you didn't want to havearound.
They likened it to a wolf.
And so that there was a veryactive culling of thylosines.
So initially there were bountiesthat were put on the thylosenes
just by the farming, farmingpopulation.
But in 1890, the Tasmaniangovernment actually put a bounty
(20:31):
on.
So we start with 5,000, right?
And by 1890, we're putting abounty on, and they know that
they paid out the bounty to over2,000.
So the numbers started reallydwindling over time.
And I I I hate to say it as a asa scientist, but the scientists
(20:57):
actually have some culpabilityin this whole story.
So if you go back and you readthe entries about the Thylocene
in the scientific literature,they are portrayed as wolf-like
predators.
And so they're sort of feedinginto the hysteria that the sheep
(21:19):
farmers and other farmers arehaving about these animals.
And there was a very active umcollecting uh effort on
thylosen, as there was witheverything during this time
period.
So there are thylosenes in about115 institutions worldwide.
(21:42):
We at the Carnegie have a singlespecimen that we know very
little about.
We got it from a donor in theearly days of the museum.
And it's just the it's just thebones.
We have no skin associated withit.
We don't even we just know it'sfrom Tasmania.
We have no additionalinformation about it.
Um but there are many museums,had many more, and when you
(22:06):
count up what's in museumstoday, there's close to about
500.
Matt Lamanna (22:12):
Out of an original population of something like
5,000.
John Wible (22:14):
Yeah, so I mean, think about it.
We we are we're giving 2,000plus out as a bounty.
We've got 500 that are ending upin scientific institutions like
ours here, and so it was justnot a sustainable thing.
Michael Pisano (22:29):
No, clearly.
And so can you talk about thekind of final chapter of the
science?
John Wible (22:33):
Right, so so it it became very clear, I think, to
both the scientific communityand to the world community that
their numbers were dwindling.
Um, they did try to keep them inzoos.
Uh even in the West, they triedto keep them in zoos, but they
were not very successful atthat.
So the last one, a female, diedon September 7th, 1936.
(22:56):
And that's actually a holiday inAustralia.
It's National Threatened SpeciesDay.
Michael Pisano (23:03):
Um I wonder, though, kind of what lessons
about biodiversity conservationyou what did you take away from
the thylosine story?
John Wible (23:11):
Well, one of the scary things to me about the
thylosine story is that there isthis very active effort to bring
the thylosine back.
So um there are several groupsthat are working on the genome
of the thylosine.
So in addition to um havingbones at some museums, there are
(23:34):
uh pouch young specimens, sojuvenile specimens that are
contained in alcohol.
And they've been extracting DNAout of these specimens.
And uh you see publications allthe time are coming out about
this.
There's just a recent one fromthe Swedish group that extracted
RNA, right?
Michael Pisano (23:54):
That got RNA out.
John Wible (23:55):
But the the very active thylosene restoration
group is at the University ofMelbourne in Australia, and um
their goal is to bring thethylosine back.
They're working with a uh aGenTe company in, I believe it's
in Texas called Colossal.
Colossal, yeah.
They're also working on thecolour.
Who's also working on the merit.
Yeah, exactly.
Matt Lamanna (24:15):
Yeah, and this is this is these are well-funded
efforts.
Yeah, yeah.
John Wible (24:19):
And and so to me, I mean, sure, I'd love to see a
thylosine again, but I I wouldhave thought that we'd learned
some lessons about messing withthe environment and bringing and
bringing species to places wherethey weren't indigenous to begin
(24:40):
with.
So we've got the lantern flyhere right now.
We've got all these invasiveplants.
I mean, all these introducedspecies that change the dynamics
of where you are.
SPEAKER_03 (24:50):
Right.
John Wible (24:50):
Um, and so the thought of bringing the thyosine
back, just you know, thatthey're spending a lot of money
in this effort.
And I've read all these commentsonline where it's like, wouldn't
that money be better spent ontrying to save things that are
having problems rather thanbringing back something?
(25:12):
Um, so I I mean, I again I'dlove to I'd be tickled pink to
see a thylosine in life.
Right.
Um, but I don't think I that theeffort is worth it to me given
the circumstances right now.
Sure.
Michael Pisano (25:26):
What do you think?
I would widen this up tode-extinction in general.
Matt Lamanna (25:29):
I think I'm kind of like John.
I I have sort of mixed feelingsabout it.
I mean, for like a, you know, Iwould love to see a thylosine in
the flesh.
I would love to see a you knowwoolly mammoth in the flesh, I
guess.
But I also don't know enoughabout the science to know are
these really these animals perse, or are they the closest we
(25:50):
can do?
You know what I mean?
Exactly.
Yeah, but like, you know,they're gonna be hybrids.
Exactly.
To use a stupid example, but onethat people will be familiar
with, you know, in JurassicPark, the yeah, the dinosaurs
are mixed with frog DNA to fillin the gaps.
And so they, you know, they usethat as a plot device in some of
the movies and things like that.
But um, you know, but but to me,I I'm with John.
(26:12):
I mean, I I um I'm not reallyagainst the extinction, so to
speak.
I mean, I I think it's it's youknow, it's interesting and cool
and it we might learn new thingsabout these animals.
Um uh and it would be, you know,I would say a pleasure again to
see one in the flesh.
But I totally agree that, youknow, uh hopefully the two
aren't mutually exclusive.
You know, hopefully, hopefullythere's enough resources out
(26:35):
there to protect animals thatare, you know, that are in
danger and maybe do this.
But you know, given one or theother, I would go, I would go
with with saving what we've got.
Michael Pisano (26:48):
Aside from going you know, fully into genetic
sci-fi territory and bringingextinct animals back uh and then
figuring out what to do withthem next, um, I wonder what
kinds of action you would eachlike to see in the next chapter
of conserving biodiversity onthe planet.
Matt Lamanna (27:05):
Well, I mean, again, I'm not a conservation
biologist, I'm a paleontologist.
I mean, of course, emotionally,viscerally, like I want to see,
you know, in you know, animalsthat are critically endangered
and threatened, things likethat, hopefully bounce back.
I mean, we definitely, I thinkone thing that's important to
remember is that with concertedeffort, you can sometimes do
this.
I mean, there are there arethere are you know stories of
(27:27):
victories, you know, spreadthroughout conservation biology
with animals that were thoughtto be too far gone.
Um, you know, so I would saytake what we've learned from
those stories and continue to domore of the same.
I think another critical thing,and the to the extent again I
know about it, again, dinosaurs,um, is uh is it's important, it
seems to be important to haveum, you know, I mean, it's one
(27:49):
thing to to you know topreserve, you know, to maintain
populations in zoos and thingslike that, but it's another
thing entirely if you want to,you know, successfully rewild,
you know, you need to haveadequate habitat habitat for
these things to to live in.
And I think oftentimescontiguous habitat spaces rather
than these little fragments thatwe often get.
And so, you know, I mean, Iguess in my ideal world, you
(28:10):
know, we we enact or continue toenact policies that you know
that that make those kinds ofnature reserves a reality.
unknown (28:18):
Excellent.
John Wible (28:19):
So for mammals, I mean, there's uh been a lot of
stuff done in the state ofPennsylvania in terms of
reintroduction of species thatwere no longer around.
So we have the example of theriver otter that was brought
back.
Uh, they're actually talkingabout bringing the marten back.
Uh the fissure was brought back.
And so you almost have to lookon these as a case-by-case
(28:42):
basis.
You know, do you have thesuitable habitats for them?
Do you have the populations thatyou can pull from to reintroduce
them?
Um, you know, I don't thinkthere's one size that's going to
fit on all this story at all.
Michael Pisano (28:56):
Certainly not.
Um, and you know, I think youjust mentioned the term the
Anthropocene extinction or thesixth extinction six X.
Um, you know, it's commonlyaccepted that we're losing
biodiversity at a rate now thatis comparable with those past
big mass extinctions like thedinosaur uh event.
Um and in that context, I haveoften heard this phrase that I
(29:17):
have kind of a bone to pickwith.
The idea that this time, youknow, in this extinction event,
humans are that destroyed.
Humans are the super volcano.
And um, yeah, I guess I justwonder what your reaction to
that sentiment is.
Matt Lamanna (29:31):
Well, I mean, I definitely get the analogy.
You know, I mean, we are uhseemingly the predominant force,
you know.
We not, you know, not peoplegoing out and hunting per se,
usually, but the you know, butbut but human activity is is the
you know is seemingly the driverof of you know of of the sixth
extinction, or at least a majordriver, if not, if not the
(29:52):
driver.
That's not controversial.
I feel okay.
Okay, all right.
Yeah, yes.
I mean, I guess, I guess what Iwould say is, you know, I I I
like that in the sense that itif you give agency to humans as
the causal factor, that alsomeans that you flip that on its
head and say that we can dosomething about it too.
(30:12):
And I think that what's reallycrucially important in talking
about Anthropocene issues,especially the the dark side,
you know, the darker issues suchas you know, the sixth
extinction or the extinctionthat we're in now, is you have
to, you can't put your head inthe sand, you know, bury your
head in the sand, pretend if Idon't think about it, it's gonna
go away.
Um, you know, you need to stayoptimistic, to stay empowered,
(30:36):
to, you know, to feel like youcan do something about it,
because nobody's gonna benefitif we if we all just throw our
hands up in the air and say, oh,we're done, you know, we're
toast, that's it.
You know what I mean?
Like, let's just give up and goparty, drink margaritas or
something.
Um, it doesn't sound so bad.
No, but um, exactly.
But um, but the point being thatlike, you know, I think optimism
(30:57):
uh in the face of the sixthextinction is important, you
know, recognizing the victoriesagain.
You know, you could go down thelist, California Condor,
whooping crane, you know,whatever.
Um uh that that you know haveshown us that when we put our
minds to it, we can make adifference.
Absolutely.
Michael Pisano (31:11):
You kind of hit exactly on what I take umbrage
with, with really just theliteral uh phrasing of, you
know, this time humans are theasteroid, is that an asteroid
can't really be regenerative,right?
I mean, except in the sense thatsure, of the you know, from the
ashes of the volcano eruption,eventually, yes, the carbon will
nurture new life and all that.
But no, I mean we just haveagency, so I really appreciate
(31:33):
you putting it that way.
And it's like the same as whenyou know what people call human
a virus, right?
It's like that's just a kind ofa self-fulfilling prophecy to
me.
It's a little defeatist, and Ithink it also says to me, and
maybe this is a stretch that youknow it's it's human nature that
we are extractive, it's humannature that every person is, you
know, a bad uh impact on theenvironment, where in reality
(31:56):
it's not everybody, right?
By a long shot, it's actually aminority of people doing very
large, you know, industrial ormilitaristic or whatever.
That's that's a whole otherpolitical side.
John Wible (32:08):
So I mean almost all animals interact or impact their
environment in some way, shape,or form.
But humans, obviously, en massedo it in a much greater
magnitude than do individualanimals.
Matt Lamanna (32:22):
But our we're a big energy-intensive organism
and there are a lot of us.
John Wible (32:26):
And yet you would think that the collective we
should be able to come to someuh you know agreement of how we
want the future to look.
And therefore, we should be ableto work together to affect that
future.
So we change is going to beinevitable, but can we direct
(32:47):
the change into places that aregonna save species or save
environments or whatever?
And yet it seems like we have ahard time talking to each other
about simpler things than that.
So I'm true, you know.
Michael Pisano (33:02):
Well, so I do I do really appreciate you
bringing up the idea of kind ofan orienting vision of a future
that has seen some biggersuccesses, and so maybe that's
what we can close out on today.
I I do wonder what you imagine ahundred years from now, 50 years
from now.
What are some of the componentsof that, you know, let's call it
utopian vision?
Matt Lamanna (33:22):
I want to ride a woolly mammoth to to work.
Who doesn't?
Yeah.
Um I mean again, I I I would saythat, you know, uh I'll stop
short of of utopia.
I mean, that that's uh thatwould be incredible.
But um, you know, just sayingthat again, we've we've learned
from our past mistakes and andyou know, I mean, we can't, we
(33:44):
we will not be able to saveeverything because some things
are already extinct.
Um, but you know, hopefullywe'll live in a world where
people are more apt to cooperatewith each other to, you know, to
to mitigate the damage thatwe've you know that we've
caused.
I mean, I think that withoutgetting, well, I will get
philosophical again.
I think somebody once said, andI don't remember who said this,
but I it it's a quote thatresonated with me a long time
(34:06):
ago.
And it's something to the effectof you know, no species in the
history of the planet has beencapable of such horrific acts
and such beautiful acts.
You know what I mean?
And I think that you know,hopefully we'll lean into the
beautiful side and and do whatwe can to kind of fix this.
Michael Pisano (34:21):
I'd love to live up to that.
Matt Lamanna (34:22):
Yeah.
John Wible (34:23):
I don't think I have anything to add to that.
Michael Pisano (34:25):
That's well said.
And when it's well said, thatcan be plenty.
Matt Lamanna (34:28):
You know, it's never too late.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, you know, it doesn't,there is no finite end date.
You know what I mean?
Michael Pisano (34:34):
It's no, and I think harm reduction is a very
valid approach to take, right?
It doesn't have to be perfect.
We don't have to bemoan that wecouldn't save everything.
We should save what we can,though.
And that's people, that'splaces, that's non-humans,
that's the whole thing.
Matt Lamanna (34:48):
It's just like life.
You celebrate the victories andtry to learn from them but the
defeats, you know.
Michael Pisano (34:52):
Alleviate a little suffering if you can.
It's a pretty it's a pretty coolmission.
So thank you both so much forjoining me.
I really appreciate your timeand getting to see these amazing
uh parts of the Carnegie'scollections.
Matt Lamanna (35:02):
Thank you for having us.
Yeah, thanks very much, Michael.
It's been a real pleasure.
Michael Pisano (35:15):
250,000 thanks to John and Matt for inviting us
into the Carnegie's MammalInvertebrate Paleontology
collections, and to the manyitems therein for lessons in
robustness, resilience, andwonder.
We Are Nature is produced byNicole Heller and Slum McCrae.
It's recorded at Carnegie Museumof Natural History by Matt Unger
and Garrick Schmidt.
(35:35):
DJ Thermos makes the music.
Mackenzie Kimmel describes thecollection items, and Garrick
Schmidt and Michael Pizzano,that's me, edit the podcast.
Thanks for listening.
You're listening to the Anthropocene Archives, a
presentation of We Are Nature.
In this special series ofstories, we're delving deep into
Carnegie Museum of NaturalHistory's 22 million collection
items, raiding cabinets andcases, sifting through objects
and organisms in search ofstories of stewardship,
solutions, and scientificwonder.
(00:31):
On today's episode, a secondserving of Bone Banter with two
of the museum's veteranvertebrate virtuosos.
John Wible (00:38):
I'm John Wargel, curator of mammals, and I study
everything about mammals, theirorigin, their evolution, their
distribution on the planettoday.
Matt Lamanna (00:48):
And I'm Matt Lamana, curator of vertebrate
paleontology, and I studydinosaurs in particular, and
especially dinosaurs from thesouthern hemisphere continents
at the end of the age ofdinosaurs.
Michael Pisano (00:59):
Last time we talked about how some Cretaceous
creatures survived massextinction.
Today we're skipping forwardsome 65 million years to discuss
a much more recent extinction,biodiversity conservation today,
and perhaps even de-extinctiontomorrow.
We're picking up right where weleft off last time, starting
(01:20):
right now with the collectionitems that Dr.
Weibel brought to share.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
Collection item one and collection item two are
presented together forcomparison.
Both are skulls, and bothmeasure six inches from back to
snout.
At first glance, you mightassume that both skulls belong
to the same species, but closeinspection of details might lead
(01:54):
to a different conclusion.
Examine the teeth.
While skull A has 46 teeth,skull B has but 42.
And while both skulls supportsharp canines, only skull B has
carnassial teeth.
Now that you're looking closely,notice how skull A has a
(02:17):
relatively smaller frame casethan skull B.
Turn the skulls upside down, andyou'll see that only one has
palatal vacuities.
Interesting.
Small differences aside, thesimilarity between these skulls
is striking.
(02:37):
Can you identify collectionitems one and two?
Michael Pisano (02:47):
What do we have on the table here?
John Wible (02:48):
So I have um two skulls here.
The one on the right is actuallyof a of an extinct uh mammal
called a thylosine, also knownas a Tasmanian wolf or Tasmanian
tiger, because they had stripeson their bodies.
And on the left-hand side is awolf.
I'm sorry, it's not a wolf, it'sa fox.
(03:12):
It's small.
It's actually a red fox.
And the reason why we I'mshowing these together is that
this represents an amazingexample of convergence in form.
So these are remarkably similarlooking skulls when you look at
this, these two here.
(03:32):
You'd be hard pressed in thisview to find features that
really distinguish them verymuch.
However, if I flip them over andwe look at the other side, we're
going to look at the palate onthese things.
This is where you should go, ohmy goodness, these don't look at
all similar.
So, of course, the first thingthat your eyes might go to are
(03:55):
these funny holes that are inthe back of the palate of the
thylocene, which I forgot topoint out is a marsupial that
was found in Australia and uhand environs historically.
Uh there's no such largeopenings in the palate of this
fox.
The other thing that's reallyquite striking is how different
(04:16):
the teeth are.
So the the teeth here on thethylosine really don't look
anything like the teeth on theuh on this fox.
So you might imagine thatthey're not necessarily eating
the same thing.
And they probably were noteating the same thing.
So that's the quick and dirtygeneral overview of what we've
(04:38):
got.
Michael Pisano (04:39):
Beautiful.
Let's fill in the picture ofwhat this organism was like in
life, the thylosine.
Matt Lamanna (04:43):
Can you kind of talk about, you know, you
mentioned Australia and likewhat they even looked like in
terms of like coloration andthings like that.
John Wible (04:51):
So um, this actually is a juvenile.
Matt Lamanna (04:53):
Yeah.
John Wible (04:53):
So this is not an adult, and the reason we know
that is that there's a tooth inthere that that is still
forming.
Oh wow, very cool.
And in fact, you can see in thelower jaw that tooth is coming
in.
So, as with all marsupials,well, most marsupials, this
actually has four molars.
Michael Pisano (05:12):
Okay.
John Wible (05:13):
And it's so you see these teeth at the back that
look like carbon copies of eachother.
And so there are four there.
There are only three herebecause the fourth has not come
in.
So in in life, this will be, asan adult, this would be a larger
animal.
So it's more dog-sized than itis fox-sized.
Um, there was quite a bit ofsexual dimorphism between males
(05:35):
and females.
And so the the females wereprobably like more dingo size,
or maybe a little bit smallerthan a dingo.
And the males might have been alittle bit bigger than a dingo.
Now, one of the more amazingthings about these animals is
their gape.
Yeah, I was gonna I was gonnabring that up if you didn't see.
(05:57):
So, how wide can they open theirmouth?
They they go through 80 degrees.
Oh wow.
So, you know, here's 90 degrees,right?
So they're opening their mouthabout like that.
SPEAKER_03 (06:08):
That's incredible.
John Wible (06:09):
Um, I meant to look up what we might be uh going,
but I don't know.
45 degrees?
Uh-huh.
60 maybe?
I doubt maybe 60.
But anyway, so the thepredictions in terms of um, and
and we also know what they atebecause they humans were around.
Michael Pisano (06:26):
That's right.
We even have uh film strip ofthese things.
Matt Lamanna (06:29):
We have films of things.
I was gonna say there's a famousbit of footage that shows, I
think it may have been the lastThylocene in captivity doing one
of its full mouth gapes.
That is that is the last one.
Amazing to see the the gape ofthese things.
Michael Pisano (06:43):
And then my understanding is they're also
nocturnal, right?
John Wible (06:46):
They were nocturnal, exactly.
Michael Pisano (06:47):
There's kind of this mystery around them, right?
Like a dingo is maybe more of aknown quantity, right?
And it's also got a commensalrelationship going back with
humans.
Exactly.
Right.
And this is a thing that's outthere at night.
It's got a funny big wide mouththat shows you all its teeth.
Right.
Um, my understanding is that thenoise they made was a little bit
stranger than maybe a canid, adog.
John Wible (07:08):
Right.
They don't really bark.
There's no arf arf kind ofthing.
Matt Lamanna (07:12):
Apparently they smelled pretty bad too.
Yeah, I don't know where thatwhere I'm getting that from.
But they yeah, like they had avery distinct, I'm not smelled
bad, but had a distinctive odor,supposedly.
John Wible (07:23):
So they they were they were very dog-like looking,
but if you watch them move, ifyou watch these movies that are
wonderful to see, they they hada very stiff tail.
So if you think of your dog asbeing happy and it's wagging
itself, their tail just sort oftrailed behind them and they
look very stiff at the back ofthe body, and it's the the back
(07:46):
half of the body where there arestripes.
Matt Lamanna (07:49):
Um the rest of the the reason why the another name
that people may have heard ofthem is Tasmanian tiger, they're
sometimes referred to Tasmanianwolf, Tasmanian tiger, if that
was another you know, nocturnalhunting, kind of scary, a
man-eater, right?
Michael Pisano (08:03):
An animal with a narrative behind it that uh, you
know, people I think want tokeep at a distance or spin kind
of a fear-based narrativearound.
Um, and so there is definitelypart of this story that's about
charisma and knowing an animalversus fearing what you don't
know about an animal.
Matt Lamanna (08:22):
I remember reading the story of the Thalocene as a
kid.
I was growing, I grew up in the80s.
Um, and to me, over time, justbecause it was this absolutely
remarkable animal that was, youknow, evolutionarily speaking,
something like a kangaroo tryingto be a wolf, you know, um, this
thing that had it is one of themost phenomenal examples of one
(08:45):
of the most interestingphenomena in evolution to me,
and that's convergence.
You know, like different uh, youknow, uh organisms from
different ancestries evolvingsimilar features because they're
doing more or less the same jobin the environment.
And, you know, so here's ananimal that that came from, you
know, marsupial ancestors, was amarsupial itself, but yet
evolved, as John said, you know,dog-like, wolf-like, um, uh,
(09:07):
even tiger-like in some ways,characteristics.
Uh, to me, it was the posterchild for convergent evolution,
um, which was fascinating to me.
But it also, when I learned itsstory, also became the poster
child for, you know, it wasn'tcalled that back then, but
Anthropocene Extinction for theSixth Extinction.
Um, and so I will go out on alimb here and reveal what a
(09:28):
gigantic dork I am.
But the first time I ever held aThalosene skull was in my
collaborator's lab in Australiain the in the late uh late
2000s, late 2000s.
So I was already very much anadult and I cried because this
animal to me is so uh meaningfulthat way.
And and and um I think all thetime about I was born in 1975,
(09:50):
1936, the last one.
I missed it by what is that, 39years?
Um, and it became to me when Istarted talking about like
teaching uh college studentsabout the history of life when I
was in grad school, I wouldalways end on, you know, my
class that I taught was Earthand Life Through Time, and I
would always end on, you know,the sixth extinction, basically,
(10:11):
and be like, look at this thingthat I didn't miss by much, that
you didn't miss by much, and nowlook at, you know, say a
Sumatran rhino or a giant pandaor any of these beautiful
animals that are criticallyendangered.
How will you feel to look yourgrandkids in the eye and say, I
could have saved this, but Ididn't know what it's like.
John Wible (10:51):
And uh talk about Australia.
So Australia was this umcontinent that split off from
Antarctica and the rest ofGondwana at some point
historically.
And the fauna, the mammal faunathat got into Australia before
it split off was reallydominated by animals today that
(11:11):
we would call marsupials ormarsupial relatives.
Uh so today here in in westernPennsylvania, we do have
marsupials.
We have the Virginia opossum.
Uh we're very lucky to havethat, but the bulk of the
diversity of living marsupialsare either in Australia or in
South America.
Um, most mainly in Australia.
(11:33):
So they're there, that's wherethe the vast, um the largest
number of species would be inAustralia.
So historically, this animal wasthe well, it wasn't the top
predator, but towards the end ofthe time when humans are
starting to get in there, it wasthe top predator.
There was a marsupial lion thatwas lion-size, that was the top
(11:57):
predator, um, but they wereknocked out as by a lot of the
large fauna around the world,probably as a result of humans.
Um here we are.
So let's say we're about 3,000years ago in Australia.
Um there were Thylacenes.
Uh they would have been the toppredator.
(12:18):
Uh they were actually in NewGuinea as well.
They were not just in Australia,and they were also in a large
island that sticks off thesouthern border of Australia,
that's an Australian statecalled Tasmania, about the size
of West Virginia.
Then what happened is now humanshad already gotten to Australia.
(12:40):
So there are a concept of twomajor waves of migration to
Australia.
There's one about 50,000 yearsago, and then there's one that's
more in the neighborhood ofabout 3,000 years ago.
And the ones that were 3,000years ago brought dogs with
them.
Dingoes, exactly.
They brought dingoes with them.
(13:01):
And so it's it the concept isthat historically the dingos
were seen as the culprits forthe demise of the thyrocine on
mainland Australia.
And our views today are quitedifferent on this.
Um, it's it's again, we don'tthink there's one size fits all
(13:24):
for everything.
Certainly the dingoes were acontributing factor, humans were
a factor.
Um, but another big factor wasactually climate change.
Yeah, so so it turns out that ummost people are familiar with
the this um Pacific currentcalled the El Nino current.
(13:46):
And what happens is that the ElNino years make it very wet in
the United States and North andSouth America, but they make it
very dry in Australia.
So it changes the air currentsand ocean currents.
Um there is some predictionsthat showed that during this
(14:08):
time period, this 3,000-yeartime period, there were severe
droughts in Australia.
So that scene is a contributingfactor.
So the thylines, thylosines wereactually quite diverse.
There wasn't just one kind ofthylosene, there were quite a
number of different kinds ofthylosines.
But ultimately, by about 3,000years ago, they were gone from
(14:30):
mainland Australia and NewGuinea.
So their one refuge was inTasmania.
So now we have to go and look alittle bit about Tasmania and
what we know about Tasmania.
So Tasmania was first uhdiscovered by Europeans in 1642.
SPEAKER_03 (14:50):
Okay.
John Wible (14:50):
A guy by the name of Abel Tasman, who was a Dutch
explorer.
And it was actually named forthe owner of the ship company
that was Van Diemen's Land,doesn't it?
It was Van Diemen's Land.
SPEAKER_03 (15:05):
Yeah, Van Diemen's Land.
Which is wonderful.
John Wible (15:06):
Actually, it was Anthony Van Diemen's Land.
And it got shortened to VanDiemen's Land.
So Anthony's Van Diemen Land.
I mean, what a what a mouthful.
When it was found, they didn'tknow it was an island.
They actually, so it was justland.
So they thought it was probablyjust part of Australia.
(15:28):
And it wasn't for 150 years thatsomebody actually sailed around
it and discovered that it was anisland.
Now it didn't get a name changeto Tasmania until like the
1850s.
Okay.
And that was that was theAustralian government or
actually the British governmentthat affected that change.
(15:49):
So the first the first coloniesin Tasmania date to 1803.
And as with Australia, the majormake of those colonies were
convicts.
So there was a heavy convictpopulation that were the early
colonists on Tasmania.
(16:12):
And then by just within 20 yearsof the original colonies, there
were about 12,000 people inTasmania and 200,000 sheep.
Michael Pisano (16:29):
An important part of the story.
John Wible (16:30):
And that's an incredibly important part of the
story.
Michael Pisano (16:33):
Before we get to that, can I quickly ask you
what?
So we're looking at the teethright now, and I wonder what we
know about their diet.
Uh, because I think that therewas a thought that perhaps they
were eating sheep, but what doyou actually think they were
eating?
John Wible (16:48):
So, in terms of but people have done like um uh
analyses that they look at thestrength of the jaw and this and
that, and there's no way thatthese things could have been
eating sheep.
They just they were solitaryhunters.
The dingoes were pack hunters,yeah.
So the dingoes were going over,going after larger things than
(17:10):
them because they were a packhunter.
The thylacenes were actuallygoing for much smaller prey.
And so, how this goes back tothe to the story is that um you
know very quickly the populationwent, the human population
expanded, and the number ofsheep farms expanded, and there
(17:32):
was an incredible uh pressurefirst on the aboriginal
population.
So in the um 1820s and then intothe early 1830s, there was
something that became known asthe Black War, where um the
British colonists actuallynearly totally wiped out the
(17:53):
Aboriginal population.
Uh, there are very few that wereleft at the end of that war.
So we go back in terms ofestimates of population size.
So the first Europeans come inin 1803, the estimation of the
Aboriginal population at thattime was about 5,000.
Similar estimates for thePhilocene were about 5,000 at
(18:17):
that time.
Michael Pisano (18:43):
For most of the time people lived there,
Lutruita was connected tomainland Australia.
Rising sea levels turned it intoan island around 6,000 BCE, and
genetic studies suggest that thePalawa were isolated for 8,000
years before Europeancolonization.
It's hard to conceive of 8,000years, much less 40,000 years.
(19:06):
The Pala's ancestors lived onLutruita for at least 1,500
generations.
They weathered two ice agesthere.
We know that they used fire tomanage the land.
We know that they made tools formany materials, including glass
made in a meteorite impact.
We know that Lutrovita had manycultures, each with their own
(19:29):
myths and traditions and ways ofrelating to the land.
If you want to learn more aboutthe Palawa and Lutruita's
history, we'll leave some linksin the episode description.
John Wible (19:49):
So now we're gonna, you know, we're gonna change the
total layout of the land interms of the having all these
sheep farms and farmers that aregonna be.
Protective of their livelihood.
And the thyosene started gettinga bad rap as being something
(20:09):
that you didn't want to havearound.
They likened it to a wolf.
And so that there was a veryactive culling of thylosines.
So initially there were bountiesthat were put on the thylosenes
just by the farming, farmingpopulation.
But in 1890, the Tasmaniangovernment actually put a bounty
(20:31):
on.
So we start with 5,000, right?
And by 1890, we're putting abounty on, and they know that
they paid out the bounty to over2,000.
So the numbers started reallydwindling over time.
And I I I hate to say it as a asa scientist, but the scientists
(20:57):
actually have some culpabilityin this whole story.
So if you go back and you readthe entries about the Thylocene
in the scientific literature,they are portrayed as wolf-like
predators.
And so they're sort of feedinginto the hysteria that the sheep
(21:19):
farmers and other farmers arehaving about these animals.
And there was a very active umcollecting uh effort on
thylosen, as there was witheverything during this time
period.
So there are thylosenes in about115 institutions worldwide.
(21:42):
We at the Carnegie have a singlespecimen that we know very
little about.
We got it from a donor in theearly days of the museum.
And it's just the it's just thebones.
We have no skin associated withit.
We don't even we just know it'sfrom Tasmania.
We have no additionalinformation about it.
Um but there are many museums,had many more, and when you
(22:06):
count up what's in museumstoday, there's close to about
500.
Matt Lamanna (22:12):
Out of an original population of something like
5,000.
John Wible (22:14):
Yeah, so I mean, think about it.
We we are we're giving 2,000plus out as a bounty.
We've got 500 that are ending upin scientific institutions like
ours here, and so it was justnot a sustainable thing.
Michael Pisano (22:29):
No, clearly.
And so can you talk about thekind of final chapter of the
science?
John Wible (22:33):
Right, so so it it became very clear, I think, to
both the scientific communityand to the world community that
their numbers were dwindling.
Um, they did try to keep them inzoos.
Uh even in the West, they triedto keep them in zoos, but they
were not very successful atthat.
So the last one, a female, diedon September 7th, 1936.
(22:56):
And that's actually a holiday inAustralia.
It's National Threatened SpeciesDay.
Michael Pisano (23:03):
Um I wonder, though, kind of what lessons
about biodiversity conservationyou what did you take away from
the thylosine story?
John Wible (23:11):
Well, one of the scary things to me about the
thylosine story is that there isthis very active effort to bring
the thylosine back.
So um there are several groupsthat are working on the genome
of the thylosine.
So in addition to um havingbones at some museums, there are
(23:34):
uh pouch young specimens, sojuvenile specimens that are
contained in alcohol.
And they've been extracting DNAout of these specimens.
And uh you see publications allthe time are coming out about
this.
There's just a recent one fromthe Swedish group that extracted
RNA, right?
Michael Pisano (23:54):
That got RNA out.
John Wible (23:55):
But the the very active thylosene restoration
group is at the University ofMelbourne in Australia, and um
their goal is to bring thethylosine back.
They're working with a uh aGenTe company in, I believe it's
in Texas called Colossal.
Colossal, yeah.
They're also working on thecolour.
Who's also working on the merit.
Yeah, exactly.
Matt Lamanna (24:15):
Yeah, and this is this is these are well-funded
efforts.
Yeah, yeah.
John Wible (24:19):
And and so to me, I mean, sure, I'd love to see a
thylosine again, but I I wouldhave thought that we'd learned
some lessons about messing withthe environment and bringing and
bringing species to places wherethey weren't indigenous to begin
(24:40):
with.
So we've got the lantern flyhere right now.
We've got all these invasiveplants.
I mean, all these introducedspecies that change the dynamics
of where you are.
SPEAKER_03 (24:50):
Right.
John Wible (24:50):
Um, and so the thought of bringing the thyosine
back, just you know, thatthey're spending a lot of money
in this effort.
And I've read all these commentsonline where it's like, wouldn't
that money be better spent ontrying to save things that are
having problems rather thanbringing back something?
(25:12):
Um, so I I mean, I again I'dlove to I'd be tickled pink to
see a thylosine in life.
Right.
Um, but I don't think I that theeffort is worth it to me given
the circumstances right now.
Sure.
Michael Pisano (25:26):
What do you think?
I would widen this up tode-extinction in general.
Matt Lamanna (25:29):
I think I'm kind of like John.
I I have sort of mixed feelingsabout it.
I mean, for like a, you know, Iwould love to see a thylosine in
the flesh.
I would love to see a you knowwoolly mammoth in the flesh, I
guess.
But I also don't know enoughabout the science to know are
these really these animals perse, or are they the closest we
(25:50):
can do?
You know what I mean?
Exactly.
Yeah, but like, you know,they're gonna be hybrids.
Exactly.
To use a stupid example, but onethat people will be familiar
with, you know, in JurassicPark, the yeah, the dinosaurs
are mixed with frog DNA to fillin the gaps.
And so they, you know, they usethat as a plot device in some of
the movies and things like that.
But um, you know, but but to me,I I'm with John.
(26:12):
I mean, I I um I'm not reallyagainst the extinction, so to
speak.
I mean, I I think it's it's youknow, it's interesting and cool
and it we might learn new thingsabout these animals.
Um uh and it would be, you know,I would say a pleasure again to
see one in the flesh.
But I totally agree that, youknow, uh hopefully the two
aren't mutually exclusive.
You know, hopefully, hopefullythere's enough resources out
(26:35):
there to protect animals thatare, you know, that are in
danger and maybe do this.
But you know, given one or theother, I would go, I would go
with with saving what we've got.
Michael Pisano (26:48):
Aside from going you know, fully into genetic
sci-fi territory and bringingextinct animals back uh and then
figuring out what to do withthem next, um, I wonder what
kinds of action you would eachlike to see in the next chapter
of conserving biodiversity onthe planet.
Matt Lamanna (27:05):
Well, I mean, again, I'm not a conservation
biologist, I'm a paleontologist.
I mean, of course, emotionally,viscerally, like I want to see,
you know, in you know, animalsthat are critically endangered
and threatened, things likethat, hopefully bounce back.
I mean, we definitely, I thinkone thing that's important to
remember is that with concertedeffort, you can sometimes do
this.
I mean, there are there arethere are you know stories of
(27:27):
victories, you know, spreadthroughout conservation biology
with animals that were thoughtto be too far gone.
Um, you know, so I would saytake what we've learned from
those stories and continue to domore of the same.
I think another critical thing,and the to the extent again I
know about it, again, dinosaurs,um, is uh is it's important, it
seems to be important to haveum, you know, I mean, it's one
(27:49):
thing to to you know topreserve, you know, to maintain
populations in zoos and thingslike that, but it's another
thing entirely if you want to,you know, successfully rewild,
you know, you need to haveadequate habitat habitat for
these things to to live in.
And I think oftentimescontiguous habitat spaces rather
than these little fragments thatwe often get.
And so, you know, I mean, Iguess in my ideal world, you
(28:10):
know, we we enact or continue toenact policies that you know
that that make those kinds ofnature reserves a reality.
unknown (28:18):
Excellent.
John Wible (28:19):
So for mammals, I mean, there's uh been a lot of
stuff done in the state ofPennsylvania in terms of
reintroduction of species thatwere no longer around.
So we have the example of theriver otter that was brought
back.
Uh, they're actually talkingabout bringing the marten back.
Uh the fissure was brought back.
And so you almost have to lookon these as a case-by-case
(28:42):
basis.
You know, do you have thesuitable habitats for them?
Do you have the populations thatyou can pull from to reintroduce
them?
Um, you know, I don't thinkthere's one size that's going to
fit on all this story at all.
Michael Pisano (28:56):
Certainly not.
Um, and you know, I think youjust mentioned the term the
Anthropocene extinction or thesixth extinction six X.
Um, you know, it's commonlyaccepted that we're losing
biodiversity at a rate now thatis comparable with those past
big mass extinctions like thedinosaur uh event.
Um and in that context, I haveoften heard this phrase that I
(29:17):
have kind of a bone to pickwith.
The idea that this time, youknow, in this extinction event,
humans are that destroyed.
Humans are the super volcano.
And um, yeah, I guess I justwonder what your reaction to
that sentiment is.
Matt Lamanna (29:31):
Well, I mean, I definitely get the analogy.
You know, I mean, we are uhseemingly the predominant force,
you know.
We not, you know, not peoplegoing out and hunting per se,
usually, but the you know, butbut but human activity is is the
you know is seemingly the driverof of you know of of the sixth
extinction, or at least a majordriver, if not, if not the
(29:52):
driver.
That's not controversial.
I feel okay.
Okay, all right.
Yeah, yes.
I mean, I guess, I guess what Iwould say is, you know, I I I
like that in the sense that itif you give agency to humans as
the causal factor, that alsomeans that you flip that on its
head and say that we can dosomething about it too.
(30:12):
And I think that what's reallycrucially important in talking
about Anthropocene issues,especially the the dark side,
you know, the darker issues suchas you know, the sixth
extinction or the extinctionthat we're in now, is you have
to, you can't put your head inthe sand, you know, bury your
head in the sand, pretend if Idon't think about it, it's gonna
go away.
Um, you know, you need to stayoptimistic, to stay empowered,
(30:36):
to, you know, to feel like youcan do something about it,
because nobody's gonna benefitif we if we all just throw our
hands up in the air and say, oh,we're done, you know, we're
toast, that's it.
You know what I mean?
Like, let's just give up and goparty, drink margaritas or
something.
Um, it doesn't sound so bad.
No, but um, exactly.
But um, but the point being thatlike, you know, I think optimism
(30:57):
uh in the face of the sixthextinction is important, you
know, recognizing the victoriesagain.
You know, you could go down thelist, California Condor,
whooping crane, you know,whatever.
Um uh that that you know haveshown us that when we put our
minds to it, we can make adifference.
Absolutely.
Michael Pisano (31:11):
You kind of hit exactly on what I take umbrage
with, with really just theliteral uh phrasing of, you
know, this time humans are theasteroid, is that an asteroid
can't really be regenerative,right?
I mean, except in the sense thatsure, of the you know, from the
ashes of the volcano eruption,eventually, yes, the carbon will
nurture new life and all that.
But no, I mean we just haveagency, so I really appreciate
(31:33):
you putting it that way.
And it's like the same as whenyou know what people call human
a virus, right?
It's like that's just a kind ofa self-fulfilling prophecy to
me.
It's a little defeatist, and Ithink it also says to me, and
maybe this is a stretch that youknow it's it's human nature that
we are extractive, it's humannature that every person is, you
know, a bad uh impact on theenvironment, where in reality
(31:56):
it's not everybody, right?
By a long shot, it's actually aminority of people doing very
large, you know, industrial ormilitaristic or whatever.
That's that's a whole otherpolitical side.
John Wible (32:08):
So I mean almost all animals interact or impact their
environment in some way, shape,or form.
But humans, obviously, en massedo it in a much greater
magnitude than do individualanimals.
Matt Lamanna (32:22):
But our we're a big energy-intensive organism
and there are a lot of us.
John Wible (32:26):
And yet you would think that the collective we
should be able to come to someuh you know agreement of how we
want the future to look.
And therefore, we should be ableto work together to affect that
future.
So we change is going to beinevitable, but can we direct
(32:47):
the change into places that aregonna save species or save
environments or whatever?
And yet it seems like we have ahard time talking to each other
about simpler things than that.
So I'm true, you know.
Michael Pisano (33:02):
Well, so I do I do really appreciate you
bringing up the idea of kind ofan orienting vision of a future
that has seen some biggersuccesses, and so maybe that's
what we can close out on today.
I I do wonder what you imagine ahundred years from now, 50 years
from now.
What are some of the componentsof that, you know, let's call it
utopian vision?
Matt Lamanna (33:22):
I want to ride a woolly mammoth to to work.
Who doesn't?
Yeah.
Um I mean again, I I I would saythat, you know, uh I'll stop
short of of utopia.
I mean, that that's uh thatwould be incredible.
But um, you know, just sayingthat again, we've we've learned
from our past mistakes and andyou know, I mean, we can't, we
(33:44):
we will not be able to saveeverything because some things
are already extinct.
Um, but you know, hopefullywe'll live in a world where
people are more apt to cooperatewith each other to, you know, to
to mitigate the damage thatwe've you know that we've
caused.
I mean, I think that withoutgetting, well, I will get
philosophical again.
I think somebody once said, andI don't remember who said this,
but I it it's a quote thatresonated with me a long time
(34:06):
ago.
And it's something to the effectof you know, no species in the
history of the planet has beencapable of such horrific acts
and such beautiful acts.
You know what I mean?
And I think that you know,hopefully we'll lean into the
beautiful side and and do whatwe can to kind of fix this.
Michael Pisano (34:21):
I'd love to live up to that.
Matt Lamanna (34:22):
Yeah.
John Wible (34:23):
I don't think I have anything to add to that.
Michael Pisano (34:25):
That's well said.
And when it's well said, thatcan be plenty.
Matt Lamanna (34:28):
You know, it's never too late.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, you know, it doesn't,there is no finite end date.
You know what I mean?
Michael Pisano (34:34):
It's no, and I think harm reduction is a very
valid approach to take, right?
It doesn't have to be perfect.
We don't have to bemoan that wecouldn't save everything.
We should save what we can,though.
And that's people, that'splaces, that's non-humans,
that's the whole thing.
Matt Lamanna (34:48):
It's just like life.
You celebrate the victories andtry to learn from them but the
defeats, you know.
Michael Pisano (34:52):
Alleviate a little suffering if you can.
It's a pretty it's a pretty coolmission.
So thank you both so much forjoining me.
I really appreciate your timeand getting to see these amazing
uh parts of the Carnegie'scollections.
Matt Lamanna (35:02):
Thank you for having us.
Yeah, thanks very much, Michael.
It's been a real pleasure.
Michael Pisano (35:15):
250,000 thanks to John and Matt for inviting us
into the Carnegie's MammalInvertebrate Paleontology
collections, and to the manyitems therein for lessons in
robustness, resilience, andwonder.
We Are Nature is produced byNicole Heller and Slum McCrae.
It's recorded at Carnegie Museumof Natural History by Matt Unger
and Garrick Schmidt.
(35:35):
DJ Thermos makes the music.
Mackenzie Kimmel describes thecollection items, and Garrick
Schmidt and Michael Pizzano,that's me, edit the podcast.
Thanks for listening.
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