Bring back the massive mammoths

Strange to think when looking over the burning, empty sands rolling from the mountains to the coast, that the UAE was not always this way.

Rivers once flowed through vast acacia forests and fertile plains, teeming with life. Antelopes, giraffes and ostriches gathered at watering places, eyed by hungy hippos, hyenas, wolverines and sabre-toothed tigers.

Best of all, massive primitive elephants, Stegotetrabelodon syrticus thundered around, with 2.5-metre tusks.

Researchers in Syria recently dug up giant giraffe-sized camels near Palmyra. Only 100,000 years old, they would have been around at the same time as human beings. No issues for ancient Syrians with underage camel jockeys: Pavarotti could have ridden one of these beasts and been no more than a gnat on a rhino.

Forget Dubailand, let's get cloning and have a Jurassic Park for real.