1 - Aurochs
Aurochs were an ancient kind of cattle immortalised in prehistoric cave paintings, and were admired for their brute strength and “elephantine” size by Julius Caesar.
The huge cattle, which weighed around 2,200lb and stood 6.5 feet at the shoulder, had sweeping horns and once roamed the forests of Europe. But they have not been seen for nearly 400 years.
Caesar described them as “a little below the elephant in size”, and they were a favourite prey for Germanic tribesmen.
The aurochs are depicted in charcoal and ochre paintings on the walls of cave galleries such as Lascaux in France and Altamira in Spain.
They figure heavily in Teutonic folklore, and in ancient times killing an auroch was seen as a brilliant demonstration of courage, with the horns turned into silver-clad drinking cups.
Under the express orders of Hitler, Hermann Goering hoped to resurrect the aurochs to populate a vast hunting reserve in the occupied territories of Eastern Europe.
But in 2010 Italian scientists planned to try and use selective breeding of modern-day wild cattle to recreate the fearsome beasts. The closest breeds in Britain are two semi-feral breeds: the Chillingham and the Vaynol.
Dr Claire Barber, from the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, said any aurochs we could create would be “potentially dangerous” and a great challenge to handle.
Pros: Supplies of milk would soar at a stroke on account of the auroch’s size, and the British Army would have a ready-made supply of fresh recruits.
Cons: Farmers would need to undergo arduous training to contain the beasts, and dog walkers’ usual fear of meeting cattle in country fields would be significantly heightened.
2 - 'Super-sized lions'
According to an Oxford University study, these prehistoric big cats roamed the British Isles as recently as 13,000 years ago.
Comparisons between the skulls of modern big cats found that the British lions would have weighed up to 50 stone (317kg) – the equivalent of a small car – compared to African lions, which weigh just 39 stone.
Cave art suggests that the creatures formed prides, although the males appear not to have had manes.
The animals, from the Pleistocene period – 1.8 million years ago to 10,000 years ago – would have lived radically different lives from those in the African savannah.
They would hunt mammoth and giant deer in a landscape that represented the modern Russian Steppe.
Amazingly given their size, it is thought that humans might have contributed to their demise.
Dr Ross Barnett, from Oxford University’s Department of Zoology, said the “supersized lions” were 25 per cent bigger and had “longer legs adapted for endurance running”.
Pros: Expensive safari holidays to the African savannah would be rendered pointless, as British animal enthusiasts could simply walk outside to watch the lions roam the British Isles like they did 13,000 years ago.
Cons: These lions weigh up to 50 stone, are adapted for endurance running, and would live in the UK. Enough said?
3 - Tollund Man
The Tollund Man was found in 1950 buried in a peat bog on the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark, and is a naturally mummified corpse of a man who lived during the 4th century BC.
Studies revealed that he had eaten a mixture of cereals and berries mashed up into a porridge which contained a fungus blight called ergot. This fungus, found on rotting rye, causes hallucinations and sensations of burning along with cramps and contortions.
It is speculated that the Tollund man may have eaten this to commune with the spirits, as ergot was a substance used in ancient wizardry.
An autopsy report on the man found that he died by hanging, with the rope leaving visible furrows beneath his chin and at the sides of his neck.
Pros: We would get an insight into the physiology of an early man.
Cons: The Tollund man may find the modern world disorientating, although he would be pleased to know that in modern Denmark hanging is no longer used as form of punishment.
4 - Meiolania
Meiolania were a species of giant turtles which were driven to extinction by humans in the Pacific almost 3,000 years ago.
These extraordinary creatures were eight feet in length, and outlived most of the other ‘supersized’ extinct animals known as megafauna.
Scientists from the University of New South Wales found they were alive 3,000 years ago on an island of Vanuatu when people known as the Lapita arrived.
They found the turtle leg bones, but not shells or skulls, which the scientists said suggested humans had helped to drive the giant turtles to extinction. It is thought they were hunted for their meat.
Dr Trevor Worthy, who led the study, said: “People arrived on Vanuatu 3100 years ago and the village middens, which are the rubbish dumps that provided these bones, date to 2800 years ago,"
"So there's essentially a 300-year gap between those first human arrivals and the end of these turtles in these middens."
Pros: We could attempt to interact with the giant turtles and ask them how they were able to outlive their fellow ‘supersized’ species.
Cons: Greenpeace’s resources would be stretched beyond breaking point as they fight to save whales from Japanese hunters and the giant turtles from humans in the pacific.
5 - Dodo
The flightless dodo became extinct in the mid-17th century after it was extensively hunted by visiting sailors. Their dogs and cats which they brought on voyages also plundered the birds’ nests.
Dodos were the main predators on Mauritius until settlers introduced bigger animals, including pigs, to Indian Ocean island. Many were shipped to Europe as curiosities but were extinct by 1700.
Fossil remains show the Dodo was about one metre tall and may have weighed between 10kg and 18kg.
Many drawings of the creature were made during the 17th century, with some showing brownish-grey plumage, yellow feet, a tuft of tail feathers and a black, yellow and green beak.
The bird’s demise was largely unnoticed until a dodo featured in Lewis Carroll’s 1865 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, forever immortalising the bird in popular culture.
Pros: The dodo was one of the first animals to become extinct due to modern human interference, so any lingering guilt would disappear.
Cons: The commonly-used phrase ‘dead as a dodo’ would have to be replaced with something much less catchy.
6 - Saqqaqs
The Saqqaqs were eskimos that walked the Earth 4,000 years ago, who lived inland and hunted reindeer.
In 2010 scientists recreated a prehistoric photofit of the extinct eskimo using analysis of DNA taken from a clump of hair dug up from the permafrost in Greenland.
Professor Eske Willerslev, lead author at the University of Copenhagen, said: "We can see the man had brown eyes, brown hair and a tendency to baldness.
"The clump of hair we found suggests he probably died quite young. We can also see he had A plus blood type.
"It is a very high quality genome – to our knowledge the only one of an ancient human."
Analysis also showed the man was closely related to three Old World Arctic populations - the Nganasans, Koryaks and Chukchis of the Siberian far east rather than American eskimos.
The artists’ reconstruction has been named as Inuk, which means human in the Greenlandic language.
The Saqqaq hunted seals and seabirds, relying on the sea for most of their food, with archaeological remains showing they lived in tiny tents during winter.
Inuk had shovel-shaped front teeth, and dry earwax, which would have made him more vulnerable to ear infections, according to the scientists.
Pros: We could judge the quality of the artist's prehistoric photofit, and could potentially revolutionise the quality of the police's e-fits as a result.
Cons: Shovel-shaped front teeth do not sound as if they would suit modern dining etiquette.
7 - Pyrenean ibex
A form of wild mountain goat, which was officially declared extinct in 2000, the Pyrenean ibex was brought back to life after it was cloned from frozen tissue.
Shortly before its death, scientists preserved skin samples of the goat, a subspecies of the Spanish ibex that live in mountain ranges across the country, in liquid nitrogen.
Using DNA taken from these skin samples, the scientists were able to replace the genetic material in eggs from domestic goats, to clone a female Pyrenean ibex, or bucardo as they are known.
The last bucardo, a 13-year-old female known as Celia, was found dead in January 2000 by park rangers near the French border with her skull crushed.
With their distinctive curved horns, they were once common in northern Spain and in the French Pyrenees, but extensive hunting during the 19th century reduced their numbers to fewer than 100.
Pros: The experiments, from 2009, raise hopes that we can resurrect far more interesting and exciting animals.
Cons: At the end of the day, it is just a kind of goat. How bothered are we?
8 - Yeti
Because the Yeti's existence has not actually been proven, this may not be the exact definition of a 'revival', but it would be fascinating nonetheless.
The Yeti, or the Abominable Snowman, is an ape-like creature that is said to inhabit the Himalayan regions of Nepal, India and Tibet.
This nocturnal creature of popular myth, which whistles and growls, is thought to be able to kill with a single punch.
Stories of the Yeti first emerged in popular culture in the 19th century, but the scientific community generally regards the creature as a legend, given the lack of evidence.
So resurrecting something that may or may not exist would definitely prove a challenge for even the most able scientist.
However, this has not stopped people claiming to have sighted a Yeti over the last 100 years.
In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reported seeing large footprints while scaling Mount Everest, although Sir Edmund later discounted the Yeti reports.
Then in September 2011 Nikolai Valuev, the so-called ‘Beast from the East’ former heavyweight boxing champion took part in an expedition to track down the Yeti. He is not thought to have been successful.
Then in October 2011 then Russian coal-mining region of Kemerovo said that footprints and possibly even hair samples belonging to Yeti were found on a research trip.
Pros: Former heavyweight boxing champions who decide to go endlessly searching for Yeti can find better things to do with their time.
Cons: Most children would struggle to sleep again. Ever. And because its original existence is not certain, it’s not clear how reviving it would be possible.
9 - Elephant Bird
The extinct elephant bird of Madagascar towered 10 feet in the air, weighed more than half a ton, and was the biggest bird that ever lived until French colonists wiped it out more than 300 years ago.
The flightless elephant bird – related to ostriches and emus – had massive legs, taloned claws and a long, powerful neck.
It evolved at a time when birds dominated the earth and probably existed on Madagascar for 60 millions until dying out in the 17th century.
Despite its enormous and fearsome presence, it was a plant eater. Its body was also covered in bristling, hairlike feathers, similar to those of the emu, and had a beak which resembled a broad-headed spear.
Its eggs were about 160 times greater in volume than a chicken egg, with a circumference of more than three feet and a length up to 13 inches.
In 2010 scientists discovered how to extract DNA from ancient egg shells, suggesting the elephant bird could one day be resurrected.
Pros: We could try and determine why an enormous ‘elephant bird’, with a huge broad-headed spear for a beak, was not interested in eating animals.
Cons: If chickens were shown comparisons of the size of their respective eggs, they may feel too inadequate and refuse to lay any more, crushing the traditional fried breakfast for good.
10 - Barbaturex morrisoni/Jim Morrison
Due to his fascination with reptiles, the rock singer has had a giant lizard that lived 40 millions years ago named in his honour.
Around 1.80 metres (six feet) from snout to tail, and weighing up to 27 kilos, the giant lizard lived at a time when the Earth was a hothouse, competing with mammals for food in the humid tropical forests of Southeast Asia.
A fossil of the beast, found in sediment in Sagaing district in Burma, has been dated to the late-middle Eocene period, when Earth was so hot there was no ice at its poles.
"We think the warm climate during that period of time allowed the evolution of a large body size and the ability of plant-eating lizards to successfully compete in mammal faunas," said Jason Head of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln who led the analysis.
The palaeontologists have named the long-extinct species Barbaturex morrisoni.
“Barbaturex” means “bearded king”, as the team of scientists found ridges on the underside of the jaw that give lizards a beard-like appearance.
“Morrisoni” is a tribute to The Doors frontman, who was famed for his fascination with reptiles and shamanism.
Pros: The Doors could launch a reunion with a new frontman; a real ‘Lizard King’.
Cons: The giant lizard would struggle to survive with the Earth’s temperatures at their current relatively low level.