Latest news with #moa
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Extinct giant bird being brought back to life
(NewsNation) — The group that resurrected the dire wolf species is looking to reestablish a giant bird, native to New Zealand, with the backing of legendary filmmaker Peter Jackson. The moa bird, which has been extinct for 600 years, could make a return to the world. The herbivore weighed 500 pounds and stood about 12 to 13 feet tall. The flightless bird was sacred to the Maori people, the native populace of New Zealand. According to their oral traditions, they were a largely docile bird. According to a study in Quaternary Science Reviews, they became extinct due to overhunting by humans. 'Peter Jackson was really excited about the work that we're doing. He knew we were working on the mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, and then the dodo, and he was very upset that we were not working on the moa,' Ben Lamm, who founded The Colossal Foundation, told 'Elizabeth Vargas Reports.' Ghislaine Maxwell should testify before Congress: Dershowitz 'If we can ever bring back species that we as mankind had a role in their extinction, while also building technologies to help conservation, (we can) help to return something that's sacred, back to the Maori people, the indigenous people of New Zealand, all while kind of inspiring kids. It kind of checked all of the boxes,' he added. Lamm noted that Jackson 'offered to accelerate the efforts with funding.' The moa birds will be reintroduced into areas on the South Island of New Zealand allocated by the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre. Lamm added that the moa birds will have the capacity to reproduce with themselves thanks to engineered additional genetic diversity that allows previously extinct animal populations to reproduce. 'Our goal is to build sustainable populations with enough genetic diversity that they can thrive on their own.' The foundation 'doesn't have to make more for New Zealand, they can actually just build up their own flock over time,' he said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Why giant moa — a bird that once towered over humans — are even harder to de-extinct than dire wolves
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A biotech company that claims to have brought dire wolves back from extinction has announced plans to resurrect giant extinct birds called moa. However, experts say that dire wolves were never truly resurrected, and that moa will be even harder to de-extinct. Earlier this month, Texas-based Colossal Biosciences said it had teamed up with filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson and Indigenous partners to bring back the 12-foot-tall (3.6 meter) South Island giant moa (Dinornis robustus) and other moa species. These flightless birds roamed New Zealand until they were hunted to extinction by early Māori settlers around 600 years ago. The new project will be coordinated by the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre, a joint venture between the main Māori tribe (iwi) on the South Island of New Zealand and the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. It's a multifaceted project that aims to combine traditional Māori knowledge, wildlife conservation and genetic engineering-driven de-extinction. However, the project has already come under fire. Critics have highlighted that some Māori iwi oppose de-extinction, while several scientists have argued that genetically modifying living animals can't bring back lost species. The scientific criticism is similar to the commentary after Colossal unveiled its "dire wolves" — a species that went extinct more than 10,000 years ago. Colossal's "dire wolves" are genetically modified gray wolves (Canis lupus) with 20 gene edits. The company claims they are dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus) because they have some observable traits identified in the dire wolf genome, such as increased size and a white coat. However, genetically, they're still mostly gray wolves. The same will be true for the living animal Colossal modifies for the moa project — but for moa, it's even more complicated. Related: T. rex researchers eviscerate 'misleading' dinosaur leather announcement Moa's closest living relatives are a group of South American birds called tinamous. The largest tinamou species is smaller than most domestic chickens, so is minuscule compared to South Island giant moa. Australia's emus (Dromaius novaehollandiae) are the next closest relative, but while these large flightless birds are physically more similar to giant moa, they're still not as big, growing to an average of 5.7 feet (1.75 m) tall. Both of these living relatives also separated from moa a long time ago. "The common ancestor of the moa and tinamou lived 58 million years ago, while the common ancestor of moa and emu lived 65 million years ago," Nic Rawlence, director of the Otago Palaeogenetics Lab at the University of Otago in New Zealand and a critic of the moa plan, told Live Science in an email. "That's a lot of evolutionary time." To put that in context, dire wolves only split from modern wolf-like canids — the group that includes gray wolves — around 5.7 million years ago (or even more recently at 4.5 million years ago, according to a recent preprint involving some of Colossal's scientists). That means moa had a lot more time to evolve unique traits. Image 1 of 3 Image 2 of 3 Image 3 of 3 Rawlence explained that moa and their closest living relatives descended from a group of small flying birds called lithornids. These animals lived around the world and gave rise to different groups that independently lost the ability to fly. As Rawlence puts it, these flightless birds were "filling the job vacancies in the ecosystem left by the extinction of the dinosaurs." Moa and emu lost flight through a process called convergent evolution, whereby different organisms evolve similar traits. That means, according to Rawlence, that the physiological and developmental mechanisms behind their body plans evolved independently, potentially via different genetic routes, which poses a challenge when it comes to bringing moa back. "Genetically engineering specific genes in an emu to match a moa could have dire developmental consequences given this independent and convergent evolutionary history," Rawlence said. Live Science asked Colossal whether there were any health risks associated with genetically engineering living animals to be more like extinct animals. Colossal's chief science officer, Beth Shapiro, told Live Science that the company was certified by the American Humane Society and that animal welfare was a priority in their work. "We thoroughly evaluate health risks of any proposed edit before selecting them for our final list of edits," Shapiro said in an email. Colossal's moa de-extinction plan Before Colossal begins creating its modern-day moa, the company aims to sequence and rebuild the genomes of all nine extinct moa species, while also sequencing high-quality genomes of their closest living relatives. This will allow Colossal to identify the changes that led to the moa's unique traits, including their large body size and lack of wings, according to Colossal's website. The researchers will then use primordial germ cells, the precursors of sperm or egg cells, from living species to "build a surrogate bird" and make genetic changes to create birds with moa traits. The company needs both male and female surrogates to carry the sperm and egg of their "moa," to then produce the genetically modified offspring. Colossal's website states that emus' larger size makes them a more suitable surrogate than tinamous. However, details on this part of the process are limited. Shapiro told Live Science that they were "still in the process of selecting the surrogate species for moa de-extinction." Emus lay large green eggs, around 5 inches (12 cm) long and 3.5 inches (9 cm) wide. Still, that's nothing compared to a South Island giant moa egg, which were 9.5 inches (24 cm) by 7 inches (17.8 cm). RELATED STORIES —'We didn't know they were going to be this cute': Scientists unveil genetically engineered 'woolly mice' —Colossal's de-extinction campaign is built on a semantic house of cards with shoddy foundations — and the consequences are dire —Dodos were fast and powerful, not slow and inept, definitive preserved specimen suggests "A South Island giant moa egg will not fit inside an emu surrogate, so Colossal will have to develop artificial surrogate egg technology," Rawlence said. Colossal briefly mentioned artificial eggs during its moa announcement, but didn't provide details on this part of the process. Live Science asked Colossal whether they could explain how Colossal will hatch a South Island giant moa. "Our exogenous development team is exploring different strategies for artificial egg incubation, which will have application both for moa de-extinction and bird conservation work," Shapiro said in an email.
RNZ News
5 days ago
- Science
- RNZ News
Bringing back extinct animals: Why, how and why again?
Sir Peter Jackson got everyone talking with his plans to bring back the moa (in in partnership with the Ngai Tahu Research Centre at Canterbury University and Canterbury Museum). But he's not the first to want to resurrect the past, earlier this year Texas company Colossal Biosciences announced it had successfully brought back 3 dire wolf cubs after 10 thousand years of extinction. Jesse talks to a member of the Colossal team, Dr Andrew Pask. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Colossal Biosciences' Next Big Feat: Bringing Back 12-Foot Moa
Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences is at it again, this time attempting to resurrect a giant that once lived alongside humans. Known as the moa, this giant flightless bird once dotted the landscape of the South Island of the country today known as New Zealand. These birds were not just big, they were huge, 12 feet tall and weighing 500 pounds. Earlier this year, The Dallas Express reported that Colossal Biosciences became the state's first company to hit a valuation exceeding $10 billion. And for good reason. Colossal has shown promise in its almost science fiction-like aspirations. In early April, the company unveiled a pack of dire wolf pups, a once-extinct species they successfully brought back to life. Their success even earned them a spot on the coveted 'TIME 100 Most Influential Companies' list. The latest initiative will see the company's new subsidiary, Colossal Labs New Zealand, collaborate with the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre at the University of Canterbury. The partnership was brought together by none other than New Zealand filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson, director, writer, and producer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. 'The gigantic moa were a cornerstone of Aotearoa/New Zealand ecosystems. Colossal Biosciences and the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre are providing New Zealand conservationists with an unprecedented opportunity to recreate lost taonga (treasured) moa species,' said collaborating scientist Paul Scofield, Senior Curator Natural History at Canterbury Museum, and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at the University of Canterbury, per a July 9 press release. Incredibly, the moa has only been extinct for around 600 years, far less than the 4,000 years that have passed since the woolly mammoth walked the earth, another species Colossal has focused on resurrecting. Colossal Biosciences CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm expressed his enthusiasm for the company's latest project. 'This partnership represents a new model where indigenous leadership guides scientific endeavors… There is so much knowledge that will be unlocked and shared on the journey to bring back the iconic moa,' he said.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Lord of the Rings director wants to resurrect extinct giant flightless bird
Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson plans to spend millions on resurrecting a giant flightless bird that was hunted to extinction 500 years ago in New Zealand. The 63-year-old believes it is possible to bring back the moa, at 10-12ft once the tallest bird on Earth, centuries after the creature was killed off by Maori hunters. The moa had sturdy legs and a long neck, and lived on a diet of leaves, twigs and fruit. They used to inhabit a vast swathe of New Zealand from the coast to the mountains. New Zealander Sir Peter has teamed up with Dallas-based Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences in an attempt to bring his country's lost giant back to life, almost Jurassic Park-like. It is the company which earlier this year claimed to have 'de-extincted' the dire wolf, when it announced the birth of three pups. Sir Peter, who is estimated to be worth £1.3 billion, has not only invested £11 million in the company, but he has made available his private collection of 400 moa bones. Using the DNA from the bones and that of the nearest surviving relatives, such as the emu and the South American tinamou, Colossal believes it can genetically engineer a moa. 'The movies are my day job, and the moa are my fun thing I do,' Sir Peter said. 'There were probably 150,000 giant moa walking around,' he added. 'We don't want to release them into the wild and we don't want to put them into zoos. We want to be able to give the moa a natural environment as big as we possibly can'. It is not just the moa and dire wolf on Colossal's agenda, Sir Peter added. 'The Colossal team is working diligently towards bringing back the woolly mammoth, the dodo and many other extinct animals – that hitherto only lived in our imagination,' he said. 'We're on the eve of de-extinction stepping out of the realm of speculative science fiction, into an awe-inspiring new reality.' Other eyebrow-raising achievements claimed by Colossal include developing 'woolly mice' with traits of the woolly mammoth by using the genes of Asian elephants. Experts voiced doubts that the moa could be brought back from extinction. 'It's not possible to de-extinct things,' Vincent Lynch, professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Buffalo, in the US, told The Telegraph. 'Technically, given enough time, I think they can probably do what they say that they're going to do, which is genetically engineer an emu to have some moa-like traits 'But that doesn't make it a moa – that makes it a transgenic emu,' he added. 'The genetic engineering part is challenging, I think that they would have to create a sort of artificial egg to grow it in. I don't know that that's been done before, so they would have to invent that. 'The genetic engineering approach that they're going to use has been done before, but not at this scale and not in an emu.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
