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Filmmaker Peter Jackson assisted in acquiring an ancient moa egg, one of fewer than 40 known to survive, after a Colorado gallery put it up for auction this June. The egg has now been repatriated to New Zealand with involvement from a de-extinction startup.
Colossal Biosciences says it has built a new AI tool that narrows down which genetic changes would be needed to recreate traits of the extinct Dodo bird. The company, founded in 2021 to pursue de-extinction projects, lists the Dodo among its target species alongside the woolly mammoth and other vanished animals. The Dodo, once native to Mauritius, was wiped out within decades of European contact in the 16th century.
Colossal Biosciences unveiled GenoMorph, an AI platform combining 3D morphology, comparative genomics and developmental biology to identify key genes in species with scarce genetic data. The company is applying it to its dodo bird de-extinction effort, where only one dodo genome exists compared to roughly 100 genomes available for its woolly mammoth project. CEO Ben Lamm said the tool was built using developmental data from chickens, quail, ducks and pigeons alongside genetic and skull data from over 70 bird species.
Colossal Biosciences CEO Ben Lamm discussed the company's efforts to revive extinct species, including dire wolves, woolly mammoths, dodos, Tasmanian tigers, and moa, at the CNBC AI Forum. Lamm described using AI models to reconstruct the dire wolf genome from ancient DNA from a skull and tooth, then editing gray wolf cells to create embryos carried by surrogate dogs, resulting in three pups named Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi. He said the company expects to reveal more de-extinct species within the next one to two years.
Colossal Biosciences has revealed the genetic engineering process it used to create living wolf pups carrying about 20 edited DNA segments associated with extinct dire wolves. The company says the underlying technology, rather than the pups themselves, represents the more significant advance, since it can be applied broadly to reconstruct extinct genetic traits in living animals.
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, running October 13-15 in San Francisco, will host a fireside chat titled 'Can We Engineer Nature's Comeback?' featuring Ben Lamm, co-founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences. The session will examine how AI and synthetic biology are being used to attempt reviving extinct species and what that means for conservation efforts.