An Anatomy of Steller’s Sea Cow

By Matthew Jablonski

 

       (There is no anatomy for Steller’s Sea Cow. Every Steller’s sea cow is dead. Its anatomy is no more.)

       In the conference room, the scientists discuss their plans to deextinct Steller’s sea cow.

       The younger scientist says, Steller said that they tasted like beef, and that the juveniles tasted like veal.

       The older scientist asks, How can we know what it tastes like? What if veal back then tasted very differently from the veal we have today?

       The principal investigator stops their chattering by saying, We must refocus. We have the nuclear genome for the sea cow, so we can begin the process of bringing the sea cow back.

       The older scientist balks and asks, How exactly are we going to do that?

       The principal investigator says, We are going to edit the genes of its closest living relative, the dugong, of course. We will deliver the DNA of the sea cow into the cells of the dugong via Cas9 nucleases that will slice up the dugong DNA and make it like the DNA of Steller’s sea cow. Then we’ll transfer the nucleus of the edited cells into hollowed-out dugong egg cells. Then, we’ll zap the edited egg cells to trick them into initiating embryonic development, and poof we have the fetus of a Steller’s sea cow.

       The younger scientist asks, What’s going to give birth to these sea cows? Can’t only Steller’s sea cows give birth to Steller’s sea cows?

       The principal investigator says, There’s no need for other animals to give birth to the Steller’s sea cows. Biotechnology advances every day, and soon we will have the means to construct artificial wombs in which the sea cow fetuses will gestate. Nature will no longer be needed at this step to facilitate the creation of new life.

       The older scientist says, Even if these Steller’s sea cows can be birthed, then surely they will not survive in the wild. The deextincted mammals will not know how the world works now. We’ll need to make so many Steller’s sea cows since so many of them will die.

       Dirtied and smirking, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum—remember, those are their real names—lean against the wall at the back of the room and lock eyes with one another. To this doubter, Jeff says, Well, uh, life, uh, finds, uh, uh, uh—

       Laura says, Life finds a way.

       Jeff says, Yes, thanks L. Life, uh, finds a way.

       The principal investigator agrees with them. Yes, life finds a way.

       For a moment, the whole room, Jeff and Sam and Laura, the scientists, and all the subordinate technicians who do not speak because they are only there to learn how they will deploy arcane techniques of deextinction in accordance with the scientists’ plans, sit in a contemplative silence.

       The younger scientist asks, Why did Steller’s sea cow go extinct in the first place?

       The principal investigator says, It was a tale as old as time: they were hunted to extinction by humans in the course of just 27 years, with the last one being seen in 1768.

       The younger scientist says, That must have made Steller sad.

       The older scientist says, Steller was already dead by then.

       The principal investigator says, None of this matters because Steller’s sea cows are gone but soon they will be back.

       The younger scientist, so fond of scientific discourse, says, If we are just editing the genes of dugongs and hoping to approximate the phenotype of a Steller’s sea cow, then are we in fact bringing Steller’s sea cow back? Aren’t we merely making something based on what we imagine Steller’s sea cows to have been?

       The principal investigator says, All of that is moot, for the organisms that we will make will be so similar to Steller’s sea cow that genetic comparisons won’t matter. Besides, we have but one complete sequence of nuclear DNA, so whatever organisms we produce cannot be taken as the quintessence of Steller’s sea cow. The genome was captured with all its idiosyncrasies, and no one can know whether it is representative of the median Steller’s sea cow.

       The older scientist says, This makes sense. We are not bringing Steller’s sea cow back to life so much as giving the extinct mammal and the men who hunted it to extinction a chance at redemption. The proliferation of animals like Steller’s sea cows will right all of our past wrongs, and that’s beautiful.

       The principal investigator closes the meeting by saying, Once Steller’s sea cows are back, we will have to study them to understand every part of their morphology and ethology so they can be protected.

       And then, the sirenians, each born of antiseptic copulation between idiot animal and cunning man, will live again, the first reborn the most innocent soul and each one birthed thereafter marked indelibly innocent too, all brought back through unfathomable techniques wrought by so many speculative deaths redeemed finally by the Steller’s sea cows that now, thanks to the work of the scientists and their technicians, the cast of Jurassic Park, and capital furnished by institutions funded and managed by people whose names few know, cut all 30 feet of their 8000 lbs bodies through Pacific kelp forests like Cas9 proteins through strands of DNA, their lips undulating over the brown fibrous matter while marine mammals, fishes, seabirds, crustaceans, algae, and maybe even a couple confused humans look through the blue depths of the ocean, all wondering what exactly those massive things swimming on by eating every blade in their path are, all asking themselves whether they ought to be afraid of these new but familiar beasts with skin so tough that nothing but the strongest of teeth or propellers can lacerate it, all pondering how the world will be now that one more organism, another node in the web of life, is present among them all, competing for resources and reproducing.