{"id":484775,"date":"2026-01-01T13:11:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T13:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/484775\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T13:11:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T13:11:21","slug":"they-didnt-de-extinct-anything-can-colossals-genetically-engineered-animals-ever-be-the-real-thing-extinct-wildlife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/484775\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They didn\u2019t de-extinct anything\u2019: can Colossal\u2019s genetically engineered animals ever be the real thing? | Extinct wildlife"},"content":{"rendered":"

Death and taxes are supposed to be the things we can depend on in this life. But in 2025, the American entrepreneur Ben Lamm<\/a> sold much of the world on the idea that death did not, after all, need to be for ever.<\/p>\n

This was the year the billionaire\u2019s genetics startup, Colossal Biosciences, claimed it had resurrected the dire wolf, an animal that disappeared at the end of the last ice age, by tweaking the DNA of grey wolves. According to the company, it had also edged closer to bringing the woolly mammoth back from the dead, with the creation of genetically engineered \u201cwoolly mice\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a flurry of high-profile announcements and press releases, it launched projects to revive the Tasmanian tiger (also known as the thylacine), the dodo and the moa, a 3-metre tall bird that has been extinct for 600 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve made a lot of big promises to the world,\u201d Lamm tells the Guardian. \u201cI think that we started to deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lamm, a 44-year-old veteran of gaming and AI startups, has brought a brash Silicon Valley showmanship and entrepreneurial drive to the genetic conservation sector \u2013 and his approach so far has been extremely lucrative.<\/p>\n

A genetically edited mouse with thick hair at a lab in Texas. Colossal created the woolly mouse as part of its plan to recreate mammoths by making an elephant cold-tolerant. Photograph: AP<\/p>\n

He quickly realised that de-extinction announcements were a recipe for excitement and publicity. When the company announced its \u201cwoolly mouse\u201d, he recalls, \u201cpeople were losing their minds\u201d.<\/p>\n

Watching the response, Lamm says: \u201cI thought: oh my gosh, they\u2019re going to go crazy about the dire wolf stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was right. When Colossal unveiled its interpretation of the dire wolf in April, the news made international headlines. Enthusiastic profiles in Time magazine<\/a> and the New Yorker<\/a> declared \u201cthe dire wolf is back\u201d.<\/p>\n

Colossal invited the public to listen to \u201cthe first dire wolf howls<\/a> in over 10,000 years\u201d on YouTube. \u201cObviously the dire wolves were a massive hit and fan favourite,\u201d Lamm says.<\/p>\n

Money poured into Colossal from Hollywood and venture capital firms. The Texas-based start up, co-founded by Lamm and a Harvard geneticist, George Church, was valued at more than $10bn (\u00a37.5bn) at its most recent fundraising round. American socialite and media figure Paris Hilton, filmmaker Peter Jackson, and former American footballer Tom Brady are among the investors, and the company now funds more than 100 scientists working to bring back extinct species from the dead.<\/p>\n

Extinction is still for ever. Charles Darwin nicely summed it up: \u2018When a group has once wholly disappeared, it does not reappear\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nic Rawlence, University of Otago<\/p>\n

Colossal\u2019s approach has also caught the attention of the powerful: the Trump administration cited the \u201cresurrection\u201d of the dire wolf as it made efforts to cut the endangered species list in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time to fundamentally change how we think about species conservation,\u201d said the US interior secretary, Doug Burgum<\/a>. \u201cWe need to continue improving recovery efforts to make that a reality, and the marvel of \u2018de-extinction\u2019 technology can help forge a future where populations are never at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the future, he said, \u201c\u2018de-extinction\u2019 can serve as a bedrock for modern species conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the announcements have been met by far less excitement among scientists. Shortly after the dire wolf announcement, and to much less fanfare, a group of the world\u2019s leading experts on canids concluded<\/a> that the company had not really resurrected the species.<\/p>\n

Rather, they had made 20 edits to the DNA of <\/strong>grey wolves, and the resulting animals did not substantially differ from those that now roamed North America, the group said.<\/p>\n

Colossal\u2019s \u2018dire wolf\u2019 cubs. The species died out 12,000 years ago. Photograph: Colossal\/AFP\/Getty<\/p>\n

Amid the scientific reaction, Colossal\u2019s chief scientist, Beth Shapiro, a leading expert on ancient DNA, acknowledged to New Scientist<\/a> that: \u201cIt\u2019s not possible to bring something back that is identical to a species that used to be alive. Our animals are grey wolves with 20 edits that are cloned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many researchers in the sector who are not employed by Colossal have been far stronger in their criticism of the company\u2019s claims. Nic Rawlence, director of the palaeogenetics laboratory at the University of Otago in New Zealand, is an expert on the moa, which the company is trying to resurrect. Bringing it back from the dead is not possible, Rawlence says.<\/p>\n

\u201cExtinction is still for ever. Charles Darwin nicely summed it up when he said, \u2018when a group has once wholly disappeared, it does not reappear; for the link of generation has been broken.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than true de-extinction, Colossal\u2019s attempts are genetically engineered poor copies at best, passed off as the real deal,\u201d he says. \u201cColossal are preying on people\u2019s desire to undo the sins of the past. However, to achieve this, Colossal is spreading misinformation and undermining trust in science by attacking critics.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a number of academic journals and scientists\u2019 commentaries, the company\u2019s announcements were met with deep scepticism. The geneticist Adam Rutherford called the mammoth announcements \u201celephantine fantasies\u201d<\/a> that would only be possible with the invention of time travel.<\/p>\n

Others argue that overhyped claims<\/a> of bringing back lost species weaken trust in science and scientists. \u201cI don\u2019t think they de-extincted anything,\u201d Jeanne Loring, a stem-cell biologist, told Nature.<\/p>\n

Those concerns have not slowed the company\u2019s push forward. In the next few years, Colossal\u2019s team of scientists will unveil its interpretation of the woolly mammoth. It will be a genetically modified Asian elephant adapted to live at -40C (-40F), with long hair, small ears and other mammoth characteristics interpreted from frozen DNA, says Lamm, who bristles at the suggestion this creature may not constitute a mammoth.<\/p>\n

One of Colossal\u2019s \u2018dire wolves\u2019 at the age of one. Critics say the firm merely tweaked grey wolf genes but did not resurrect Aenocyon dirus. Photograph: AP\/Colossal<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe in free speech so if people want to call our mammoth a mammoth, or a genetically modified, cold-tolerant Asian elephant with lost mammoth alleles [variants of genes] inserted through genetic engineering, we\u2019re cool with that. Whatever,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a child cares more about biodiversity loss and the climate because they saw a Colossal mammoth, who gives a shit?\u201d Lamm adds. \u201cThat\u2019s our view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Modern conservation doesn\u2019t work at the speed at which we are eradicating species and changing the planet<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ben Lamm<\/p>\n

For a number of scientists, making public criticisms of the company has come at a cost. In July, New Scientist revealed that several scientists<\/a> who had been critical of Colossal had been the subject of seemingly AI-generated articles in a mystery smear campaign, attacking their credentials <\/strong>and academic records.<\/p>\n

Lamm says the company has nothing to do with the stories. <\/strong>\u201cWe have a lot of support from different communities publicly, ranging from scientists all the way to crypto; it\u2019s a big spectrum. People argue about things all the time. So, if you are going to be a critic, you should be comfortable that you may also be criticised,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The criticism has irritated Lamm. He points to Colossal\u2019s efforts to conserve elephants and in trying to save the northern white rhino as evidence that his company can change the way the sector works. The company\u2019s website frames its work as part of efforts to counteract the collapse of biodiversity, which some scientists have called the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An impression of a South Island giant moa, one of two species of the tallest birds that ever existed, with a human drawn to scale. Colossal says it is trying to revive the extinct New Zealand birds.\u200b Photograph: Colossal<\/p>\n

\u201cThe worst part of conservation is conservationists ,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of models out there are not working and we need new models. The reality is, modern conservation \u2013 while it works \u2013 doesn\u2019t work at the speed at which we are eradicating species and changing the planet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to get more of these incredible scientists off the couch and in the field saving animals. They must communicate it in a way that isn\u2019t behind some paywalled scientific paper but in a way that gets a kid, like, \u2018Oh, I want to go to Africa and save elephants. Oh my gosh, I have to save the dugong. What do you mean drug cartels are killing the vaquita<\/a>? How can I help that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Colossal\u2019s harshest critics recognise the potential of gene editing to save species caught in genetic bottlenecks. Many wildlife populations have become dangerously inbred as their numbers dwindle, and Colossal is working to reintroduce genetic diversity back into populations, such as the critically endangered red wolf in North America, by reintroducing lost genes from museum specimens.<\/p>\n

Despite the excitement and money around Colossal, however, conservationists say its work can never be a substitute for traditional efforts to save species from extinction: the time-consuming work of controlling predators, protecting ecosystems and restoring habitats.<\/p>\n

\u201cDe-extinction technology could be a useful conservation tool for living species,\u201d says Rawlence, \u201cbut it won\u2019t replace unsexy grunt work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Find more age of extinction coverage here<\/a>, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston<\/a> and Patrick Greenfield<\/a> in the Guardian app for more nature coverage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Death and taxes are supposed to be the things we can depend on in this life. But in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":484776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-484775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115820015419034258","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}