Imagine walking through a frozen landscape. Snow all around. Out of the mist comes a massive woolly mammoth. It’s alive! You blink twice—but it’s real.
This might sound like a scene from a sci-fi movie, but it’s something scientists are actually working on. The idea of bringing extinct animals back to life is known as de-extinction, and while it still feels unreal, it’s becoming more real every year.
What Is De-Extinction?
De-extinction means using modern science to bring back animals that have died out. It’s not always about making a perfect copy of the extinct animal, but about recreating something very close—genetically, physically, or even just in behavior. Scientists might do this by editing the DNA of a living species, by cloning from frozen cells, or by breeding animals with ancient traits until they resemble the lost species. Some projects are trying to restore damaged ecosystems, while others want to fix what humans destroyed.
To bring back an extinct species, scientists start by finding preserved DNA from the animal, like from frozen remains. Since the DNA is usually damaged, they compare it to the DNA of a close living relative—like using an elephant to understand a mammoth. Using a tool called CRISPR, they edit the living animal’s genes to match the extinct one’s traits, like fur or size. Then, they place the edited DNA into an egg and grow it inside a surrogate mother, hoping to create a living version of the extinct creature—or at least something very close.
The Mammoth Comeback
The woolly mammoth is the face of de-extinction. These elephant-like giants once roamed the cold northern parts of the world but went extinct thousands of years ago. Now, scientists—especially a team at Harvard led by Dr. George Church—are trying to bring them back.
Cloning a mammoth from scratch is nearly impossible because DNA breaks down over time. Instead, they’re taking Asian elephant DNA and adding in mammoth traits. They do this using a tool called CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats). They’re editing in genes for cold resistance, small ears, and thick fur—traits that helped mammoths survive the ice age.
But the goal isn’t just to bring back mammoths for fun. The team believes these animals could help the environment. By stomping on snow and knocking down trees, mammoth-like elephants could slow down the melting of the Arctic permafrost—a frozen layer of ground that holds a lot of carbon. If it melts too fast, that carbon could make climate change worse. So, in a strange way, mammoths might help fight global warming.
Restoring the Passenger Pigeon
Not every de-extinction project is about giant prehistoric animals. The passenger pigeon is a more recent story. These birds once flew in huge flocks for hours. But by the early 1900s, they were gone— pushed out by deforestation. The last known bird, named Martha, died in 1914 in a zoo.
Now, a group called Revive & Restore is trying to bring the passenger pigeon back. They’ve studied its DNA and are editing the DNA of a similar bird—the band-tailed pigeon—to slowly re-create the extinct version. Their hope isn’t just to bring the bird back for the sake of it, but to help forests. Passenger pigeons used to spread seeds and keep ecosystems balanced. By reintroducing them, we could give forests a second chance too.
The Bucardo’s Return
One of the first real attempts to bring back an extinct animal happened in Spain in 2003. The animal was the bucardo, a wild goat that lived in the Pyrenees mountains. The last one died in 2000, but scientists had saved some of its skin cells. They used those cells to clone a new bucardo by putting the DNA into a goat’s egg.
The clone was born—and for a few minutes, the bucardo was alive again. It even took a few breaths. But sadly, it had lung problems and died just minutes later. Still, it was a moment of history: the first time a species came back from extinction, even briefly.
Thylacine
The thylacine, also called the Tasmanian tiger, was a strange-looking marsupial predator from Australia. It looked like a mix between a dog and a tiger, with stripes on its back. Sadly, humans hunted it to extinction by the 1930s, thinking it was a danger to sheep and livestock.
Scientists in Australia, working with a company called Colossal, are now trying to bring it back. They’ve decoded the thylacine’s DNA and are editing it into the DNA of a tiny marsupial called the dunnart. Their goal is to create a baby thylacine and raise it either in an artificial womb or inside another marsupial.
Why bring the thylacine back? One reason is to help fix Australia’s ecosystems, which are full of invasive species and missing native predators. The thylacine could help bring balance to the wild.
Breeding Back the Aurochs
Not all de-extinction needs high-tech labs. In Europe, scientists are trying to bring back the aurochs, a giant ancestor of today’s cows. The aurochs went extinct centuries ago, but traces of its DNA still exist in some modern cattle breeds.
By carefully breeding cows with old aurochs traits—like big horns, wild behavior, and large size—scientists are trying to recreate an animal that acts and looks like the original. These cows are already being used in natural parks to keep grasslands healthy, spread seeds, and restore the balance between open fields and forests.
This method doesn’t involve cloning or editing genes. It’s a slower, more natural process, but it can still have a big impact on the environment.
Why Bring Them Back?
You might wonder: why go through all this effort? Why not focus on protecting the animals we already have?
There are a few reasons. First, some extinct animals played huge roles in their environments. When they disappeared, their ecosystems started to fall apart. Bringing them—or something like them—back could help fix that. Second, many of these extinctions were caused by humans. Some scientists believe we have a responsibility to try to undo the damage we’ve done.
There’s also the scientific side. Trying to bring back extinct species teaches us a lot about DNA, cloning, and biology. Even if we never succeed, we might use the same tools to save endangered animals from disappearing forever.
What Could Go Wrong?
Of course, de-extinction isn’t perfect—and it isn’t always a good idea. For one, it’s hard to know how a species from the past will fit into today’s world. The climate has changed. Their food sources may be gone. Their old predators or prey may no longer exist. Can they throw everything off balance?
There’s also the issue of animal suffering. Cloning often fails, and many embryos or newborns don’t survive. Even when they do, they may be sick or weak. Using living animals as surrogates raises big questions about animal rights.
The future of de-extinction may not look like a world full of mammoths and saber-toothed cats. Instead, it may give us better tools to protect life, restore damaged ecosystems, and face climate change with more knowledge than ever before.
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