Is this ‘de-extinction’ project actually onto something?

A striking development has emerged in artificial intelligence. Science Close Science Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Science Tech Close Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Tech Is this ‘de-extinction’ project actually onto something?

Colossal isn’t ‘bringing back’ lost species. But it might be working on something ‘useful. ’ Colossal isn’t ‘bringing back’ lost species.

Technical Details

But it might be working on something ‘useful. ’ by Tom Hawking Close Tom Hawking Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Tom Hawking Apr 30, 2026, 12:00 PM UTC Link Share Gift Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Dallas-based genetics and biotech startup Colossal has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from venture capitalists, the CIA, and Peter Thiel , among others .

Its buzzy “de-extinction” projects aim to “bring back” lost animals like the woolly mammoth , the Tasmanian tiger , and the dire wolf — although it isn’t creating copies of extinct creatures from ancient DNA, as the “de-extinction” tagline may suggest. In the case of the “ dire wolves ” presented to the world in 2025, the pups were gray wolves spliced with a few genetic traits to somewhat resemble the dire wolves. This ambitious branding opened the company up to questions about its conservation efforts and criticism for apparently not really “de-extincting” anything at all.

Colossal’s latest “de-extinction” project, announced in April, seems to represent something of an adjustment to its public-facing strategy. It’s focused on a plan for the bluebuck, a species of South African antelope that went extinct around 1800. Colossal CEO Ben Lamm was quick to say that the technology developed for the project can already be used in conservation efforts — and it will be made available as a resource outside of the company.

Industry Implications

“We made enough progress some of those technologies could be immediately applicable to antelope conservation — and about 30 percent of antelopes are threatened with extinction,” Lamm told The Verge. “Everything that we do that has application to conservation, we open source for free to the world. ” The technologies in question largely focus on facilitating reproduction and what Lamm described as “a completely novel technique” for collecting and aspirating oocytes from live animals.

He described this procedure of harvesting immature egg cells as “ovum pickup” where researchers “literally use an ultrasound and a needle to go into a live animal’s ovary and flush out the eggs. ” One of the criticisms leveled at Colossal has been that the announcements involving extinct species draw attention away from ongoing efforts to save critically endangered species that still exist. This sort of criticism intensified significantly after the dire wolf announcement.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.