SciTech

The Great Auk: from Extinct to Extant?

Andrew Mooney describes the groundbreaking genetics research that may lead to the return of the extinct and long-forgotten bird species, the Great Auk, displayed at the Trinity Zoological Museum

Cabinet 20 in the Trinity College Zoological Museum is not crammed with specimens, instead it contains only one, the Great Auk. This specimen, collected off Waterford in 1834, represents the last recorded sighting of this species in Ireland. It wasn’t