- Researchers hope to revive species such as mammoths and Tasmanian tigers
Scientists plan to bring back to life extinct animals currently unknown in the natural world.
Researchers are looking for DNA from species never before discovered, in a search for clues about how animals survived in different climates and to make today’s species more resilient.
A team from Colossal Bisciences in Texas is digging into the distant past to shed light on species other than anything that exists today.
They now hope to reintroduce long-extinct species such as the mammoth, the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger within a few years.
But the lab also found a species of Arctic equid, related to the horse and donkey, that lived in North America about 700,000 years ago, Chief Scientific Officer Professor Beth Shapiro told the Telegraph.
Scientists believe it will only be a few years before extinct species like the mammoth come back to life
She compared the past to an “other planet” that was “ripe for discovery” of things not currently documented in fossils.
While these types of discoveries may be unprecedented in human experience to date, they would not be a first for evolution, she added.
Extinct species whose DNA experts are studying include cave hyenas, moas, saber-toothed cats, woolly rhinos, American cheetahs, Colombian mammoths and the long-horned bison.
The world’s first company to specialize in ‘de-extinction’, founded by geneticist George Church and Harvard’s Ben Lamm, is spending almost £6 million on technology that will speed up the discovery of ancient unknown species.
A photo of the now extinct dodo, a flightless bird endemic to the island of Mauritius. A Texas laboratory hopes to revive species within the next decade and develop ways to prevent current animals from going extinct
Mr Lamm said the first ‘generation’ of mammoth calves could be born as early as 2028 via a surrogate mother, possibly via an artificial womb, and with a gestation period of 22 months.
It is a project that his business partner, Professor Church, has been working on for ten years.
He said the laboratory has made “significant progress” and is now in the genetic editing phase, having analyzed more than 60 mammoth genomes.
He hopes to have revived two more species within the next decade: the thylacine and the dodo, helping to build sustainable populations in their natural habitat.
The center also hopes to use its findings to save endangered species from extinction, by learning from past examples of animals adapting to changing climates.