- Researchers hope to revive species like mammoths and Tasmanian tigers
Scientists are plotting to resurrect extinct animals currently unknown in the natural world.
Researchers are searching for DNA from species that have never been discovered before, looking for clues about how animals survived in different climates and to make current species more resilient.
A team at Colossal Bisciences in Texas is delving into the distant past to shed light on species unlike anything that exists today.
They already hope to reintroduce long-extinct species such as the mammoth, dodo and Tasmanian tiger within a few years.
But the laboratory also found a species of arctic equid, related to the horse and donkey, that inhabited North America about 700,000 years ago, its scientific director, Professor Beth Shapiro, told the Telegraph.
Scientists believe they are just a few years away from resurrecting extinct species like the mammoth
He compared the past to a “different planet” that was “ripe for the discovery” of things not currently documented in the fossil records.
However, while this type of discovery may be unprecedented in human experience, it would not be the first in evolution, he added.
Among the extinct species whose DNA experts are studying are cave hyenas, moas, saber-toothed cats, woolly rhinos, American cheetahs, Colombian mammoths and long-horned bison.
The world’s first “de-extinction” company, founded by Harvard geneticist George Church and Ben Lamm, is spending almost £6 million on technology that will accelerate the discovery of ancient unknown species.
An image of the now extinct dodo, a flightless bird endemic to the island of Mauritius. A laboratory in Texas hopes to revive species in the next decade and develop ways to prevent current animals from going extinct.
Lamm said the first “generation” of mammoth calves could be born in 2028 via a surrogate mother, possibly via an artificial womb, and with a gestation period of 22 months.
It’s a project his business partner, Professor Church, has been working on for 10 years.
He said the lab had made “significant progress” and was now in the gene editing phase, having analyzed more than 60 mammoth genomes.
In the next decade, he hopes to have resurrected two more species: the thylacine and the dodo, creating sustainable populations in their natural habitats.
The center also hopes to use its findings to save threatened species from extinction, learning from past examples of animals adapting to changing climates.