Board Thread:Fossil Fuels/@comment-3213993-20150507042141

One major hurdle to the chickenosaurus project is teeth. Talpid2 chicks can develop tooth buds without enamel as embryos, but this mutation is lethal and leads to the death of the bird. However, in the same paper in which Harris discovered the talpid2 chicken teeth, he was also able to briefly get normal chicken embryos to develop the same structures using a viral vector containing b-cantenin. These were reabsorbed into the beak, however, so we will also need to find a way around that.

Jack Horner says that he plans on using transgenics to get the teeth to develop enamel. However, this does not mean the tooth issue is over. The talpid2 tooth buds are still a long way from true teeth. If we just gave the chickenosaurus tiny teeth with enamel, that would be a long way from the sharp teeth found in T. rex and Velociraptor. 