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Key Highlights
- Mammoths were roughly the same size as African elephants, with males reaching shoulder heights between 2.7-3.4 metre. It’s said they coexisted with early humans, who used their bones and tusks to make tools, art, and dwellings.
- What humans now know about mammoths comes from fossils, skeletal remains, and frozen specimens that were found in places across the planet by researchers and archaeologists.
- But now, a new company is channeling millions of dollars in an effort to resurrect the long-extinct animal.
The woolly mammoth, a species of mammoth that lived during the Pleistocene, went extinct roughly 10,000 years ago.
It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene.
They were roughly the same size as African elephants, with males reaching shoulder heights between 2.7-3.4 metre. It’s said they coexisted with early humans, who used their bones and tusks to make tools, art, and dwellings.
What humans now know about mammoths comes from fossils, skeletal remains, and frozen specimens that were found in places across the planet by researchers and archaeologists.
But now, a new company is channeling millions of dollars in an effort to resurrect the long-extinct animal.
Colossal, as it’s called, said in a statement they have received $15 million in funding to combat the colossal problem of extinction’, according to a New York Times report.
While it’s fairly unclear what the company plans to do, the scientists will likely take an approach that was made popular by Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster ‘Jurassic Park’.
No points for guessing they will be working around DNA splicing in a bid to revive the animal.
According to reports, DNA sequencing innovators George Church and Harvard Boffin are already excited to bring back the pre-historic creature. They believe if it all works out well it will be a major milestone.
“This is a major milestone for us. It’s going to make all the difference in the world,” said the scientists.
The research is being spearheaded by Church and his employees. Colossal intends to fully fund the research and also enable further research work in laboratories in Boston and Dallas.
The initial plan is to edit the DNA of elephants to more closely resemble their prehistoric precursor. Once that is done, they will try to create embryos of mammoth or mammoth-like elephants.
In principle, one could make 100,000 at once over two years. I’m not saying that’s what we’re going to do, but it’s not necessarily a technical barrier, it’s more financial and wilful,” Church told a news outlet.
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