• Question: If you combined the hormones and DNA of an animal that lived in water and an animal that lived in land, would it be able to live in both water and land?

    Asked by abbie520 to Derek, Elaine, Heather, Keith on 27 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Keith Siew

      Keith Siew answered on 27 Jun 2013:

      Well that would depend on what the functions of the hormones are and what the DNA from both the animals codes for…

      I guess in a way nature has already done that experiment for us… mammals that live in the sea for most their lives like whales, seals, dolphins, otters would once have had common ancestors that lived in the sea and could breath under water… these evolved to walk and breath on land… and eventually they returned to the sea and evolved to cope with that…. they may be distant relatives but we share DNA with fish and other marine species… so we’re already a sort of mix…

      But if you’re talking about genetically engineering animal… then you could create a sort of amphibian like frog… as they can breath on land through their lungs but also through their skin under water! I suppose you could also give them a set of gills that they could use to extract oxygen more efficiently from the water… webbed hands and feet, tough skin and an ability to withstand cold temperatures in the water.

    • Photo: Heather Eyre

      Heather Eyre answered on 27 Jun 2013:

      We are actually related to fish- but we’re not very good at living in water! You’d need to be really careful about what you combined and whether is lived in salty or fresh water would make a big difference to how the kidneys worked, and that’s just one thing to think about!

      Amphibians are probably the answer, they seem happy enough in my garden and in the river that runs past too! There are little frogs the size of a thumb nail that I have to be careful not to stand on!

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