After the mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger, scientists will "resurrect" the dodo bird

Colossal Biosciences announced about plans to "resurrect" the dodo bird. It will be the third extinct animal that scientists will bring back to life. The project already has woolly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger.

The flightless dodo bird or dodo was discovered in 1598 by Dutch explorers on the then uninhabited island of Mauritius. And less than 100 years after that, they became extinct. Humans and the animals they introduced, such as dogs and cats, have wiped out this species.

According to most images, the dodo bird had a gray or brownish plumage with lighter flight feathers, as well as a bunch of curly light feathers in the rump. The head was gray and bald, the beak was green, black or yellow, and the legs were yellowish with black claws. Dodos were about 1 meter high and could weigh up to 23 kg.

Beth Shapiro was the first to completely sequence the Mauritius dodo genome by deciphering its DNA. And scientists plan to bring extinct animals back to life using genome editing technology, when their genes are "settled" to a fairly close species. For example, in the case of mammoths, it will be elephants.

Scientists do not yet know when they will be able to bring the dodo and Tasmanian tigers back to life, but they promise to breed the first mammoths by 2028.

Startup Colossal Biosciences was founded in 2021. The Extinct Animal Resurrection Project has already raised $225 million in funding.