Scientists Create Adorable New Mouse Breed by Altering Genes to Produce Woolly Mammoth Features
Colossal Biosciences woolly mammoth de-extinction efforts are focused on modifying an Asian elephant to recreate the ancient beast.
Scientists at Colossal Biosciences have created a genetically engineered mouse dubbed the “woolly mouse” as a step towards their goal of resurrecting the woolly mammoth.
The end product is a new breed of mouse exhibiting several mammoth-like traits, including:
- Curly whiskers
- Wavy, light-colored fur that grows three times longer than a typical lab mouse
- A coat color similar to mammoth mummies found in permafrost
- Genes that affect fat metabolism
The team didn’t splice DNA from mammoths into the mice. Using a 52,000-year-old fossilized mammoth carcass, scientists reconstructed the 3D structure of ancient chromosomes.
Colossal said it had identified genetic variants in which mammoths differed from Asian elephants. This enabled them to pinpoint active genes related to traits like hair follicle development, critical for the woolly phenotype.
They then gene-spliced mouse genes to express features identified in mammoths (for those of you interested in the actual genes, follow this link). This technique ensured the resulting mice had the genetics that would result in the desired features.
While they might not be scary enough to star in the next Jurassic Park movie, Colossal says these fluffy mice could pave the way for lost giants to walk the Earth once again.
By comparing ancient mammoth DNA to the genes of modern elephants, Colossal’s team has ‘resurrected’ the physical traits which once helped mammoths thrive in cold climates.
By changing just eight key genes, the mice have been engineered to show dramatically different coat colours, textures, lengths, and thicknesses.
In the future, this same technique could be used on elephants to produce a new generation of woolly mammoths which could be released into the wild.
They may not look like woolly mammoths, but they are adorable.
Just so cute
— Ronniedodge1994 (@Ronniedodge4) March 4, 2025
It must be stressed that the team used gene variants observed in healthy mice to avoid health concerns, so the “wolly mouse” contains no mammoth DNA. However, the goal is to use a similar approach on an animal a little closer in lineage to the mammoths.
Colossal’s woolly mammoth de-extinction efforts are focused on modifying an Asian elephant, the mammoth’s closest living relative, to express mammoth-like traits. Over the past few years, the company has developed a suite of tools designed to analyze and edit DNA, among other moonshot endeavors like creating artificial wombs.
The company’s multi-step pipeline involves identifying genes related to key traits, genetic modification of cells or embryos, implantation, gestation, and finally birth. Rather than creating a mammoth from the jump, an experiment which involves a 22-month gestation period, the folks at Colossal elected to test their pipeline through the creation of the woolly mouse.
“It’s a validation, we’ve spent a lot of time and effort and money doing the computational analysis across 100+ genomes to identify these core targets that will drive both cold tolerance and some of these phenotypes that we’re looking for,” Ben Lamm, Co-Founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences, told SYFY WIRE. What’s great about our woolly mice is that it proves that our end-to-end pipeline for de-extinction works.”
However, there are many other aspects associated with woolly mammoths that have not yet been addressed.
The research outlined in the unpublished paper was technically impressive and the genetic changes precise and efficient, said Robin Lovell-Badge, head of the Stem Cell Biology and Developmental Genetics Laboratory at The Francis Crick Institute in London.
“My biggest problem with the paper is that there is nothing addressing whether the modified mice are cold-tolerant — through introducing traits that are apparent in mammoths — which is the justification given for carrying out the work,” Lovell-Badge said via email.
“As it is, we have some cute looking hairy mice, with no understanding of their physiology, behaviour, etc. It doesn’t get them any closer to know if they would eventually be able to give an elephant useful mammoth-like traits and we have learned little biology.”
At this point, it will be interesting to see what happens in the next phase of research.
I think it would be karmic if @elonmusk got man to Mars about the same time the @colossal Biosciences recreated the Wolly Mammoth. https://t.co/xnU4HOPeQQ
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) March 6, 2025
The following video has more details.
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Comments
It’s convenient that mammoths feed their young milk and are large, etymology-wise.
Yeah, they’re cute and all, but people should stop playing God.
Jurassic Park was supposed to be a warning, not an inspiration.
Yes came to say that.
Scientists need to stop playing God, as utroukx said. That kind of experimenting got us Covid (and the Covid mRNA “vaccines”).
They should be left extinct. An animal larger than an elephant can only be a problem. If this happens what’s next? A saber tooth tiger?
Well…yes.
A Saber tooth mouse.
That would be adorable, too!
These wooly mice just look like hamsters with tails.
A Chimera being brought to life seems like a bad idea.
“They may not look like woolly mammoths, but they are adorable.
Just so cute”
Tell me you’ve never been a landlord without telling me.
Where are the tusks?
Now that would be worth the price of eggs
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Mammoths are extinct for a reason; i.e. they couldn’t adapt to conditions in a non-glaciated environment.
There were no competitors in their environmental niche; if they been able to, they would have found another environment, *had they been able to adapt to it.* They did not.
Trying to breed some more mammoths because it sounds cool is probably not the soundest science.
Ordinarily, I’d go for spring traps instead of glue strips, just because the classic works best. But with these hairy monsters, the glue might be worth a try.
This is the kind of science that leads to unintended consequences. And those consequences usually end up on the bad side.
…ALMOST ALWAYS end up on the bad side.
ALWAYS end up on the bad side. Won’t a 10 to 12 foot tall, 8 ton hairy mouse be so cute.
Since the dawn of time, every new discovery there are always benefits and liabilities.
They should forget Mammoths and being back dinosaurs. Then they can put them in natural settings on an island off of Costa Rica. and create a theme park. Oh wait…
Annnnnd… what did THIS cost the taxpayers?
I looked. This appears to be privately funded, as best as I could tell.
I’m surprised.
Not shocked?
So was Jurassic Park.
Just sayin’.
Yeah, but even that required the government to look the other way if I remember the novel correctly.
Life imitating art once again.
Humanity has always been evolving, just look at Africa today. Now we are on the cusp of being able to improve ourselves, to guide evolution. I am sure that there will be both failures & successes. We will learn from both.
MMGA! Make Mice Great Again!
I heard they crossed a democrat with a mouse and got a rodent that votes multiple times.
And it LOVES government cheese!
I’m pretty sure the only rodents produced by the government are rats.
Rats which Trump, Musk and the rest of the administration are rooting out, no doubt followed by criminal prosecutions.
I heard they crossed a mouse with a MAGA. The MAGA mouse got real overweight stole all the rest of the mice’s food and he tried to force himself on all the female mice, against their will.
Out of curiosity, how do you think the animal kingdom works? You know Ratatouille wasn’t a documentary, right?
You’re confused! It’s the fat never Trumper mice that sit around and draw welfare cheese while the MAGA mice work and pay taxes.
It’s the fat never Trumper mice that protest the government and then look to the government to support them.
Hey, take a look in the mirror and you will see one.
We have Dems doing everything you suggest and worse, it is their example which made MAGA far superior.
Always wanted to see real Woolly Mammoths brought back.
Trust me. No matter how many people in your HOA you think can be convinced, they will never let you have one as a pet.
I can’t even have a grizzly or Alaska Brown bear in my HOA.
All you have to do is say your bear’s transgender and they will welcome them with open arms.
black bear? polar?
Damn Karens.
Who in their right mind buys into a HOA?
Aw, man! I really wanted one! Good thing I don’t live in an HOA, huh?
OMG! Are thes the transgender mics the moron talked about in his lie=a=thon the other night!! LOLOLOLOL
You certainly are tiresome and predictable. You need a new shtick.
there are trolls and then there are really weird trolls
Transgender trolls, like this one, are the worst.
Read https://americandebunk.com/
Did you just use an anti Irish slur? Bigot.
No. These transgenic mice are being used in experiments to bring back wooly mammoths. They probably haven’t been humanized.
The transgenic mice you’re interested in were used to test the efficacy of ‘gender affirming care’.
You really appear to now nothing. Are you Harry Sisson?
Has anyone told you that you’re not even remotely clever or funny? Those traits require a certain level of intelligence that you don’t possess. Maybe Colossal Biosciences can hack your DNA next.
what should he be crossed with? A sloth? Now they’re too cool. I know. a Dung Beetle.
Some people draw all short straws at conception.
Congratulations, that was almost English.
It’s a fascinating experiment and does show how far we’ve come with attempts at genetic modification. There’s another neat experiment I watched a video about this weekend where scientists altered mice with gene’s thought to be responsible for human language which did result in altering the mice vocalizations. Not sure if I should insert a link, site’s been funny about my comments showing up, but on youtube just search for the title: Human Language Gene Inserted Into Mice Led To Some Bizarre Effects. It was uploaded by Anton Petrov and I’ve watched plenty of his other stuff on scientific topics.
That’s nice but the point of doing this is ???? It would be nice for the scientists to explain why they are spending this amount of money to do something with no apparent value. The bigger question as others have pointed out is should they be doing this.
Science is its own value. If they do manage to recreate dodos and/or mammoths they can probably make a lot of money from it. Dodo meat was supposedly delicious. And people would pay a lot for mammoths. Plus the ability to do this translates into all sorts of uses. Expanding knowledge almost always pays off somehow.
Science is its own value.
And that gets us all kinds of dystopian horrors. Making the means the end is always a bad proposition.
For example, the human experiments during the Holocaust.
What happened was awful for those people, what was learned still positivity impacts modern medicine. Keep in mind that I hold Jews in high esteem.
And sometimes the payoff is positive! (heh)
How did it pay off in Wuhan? Just asking for my deceased employee…
We can start with Fauci and Gates. How much money did they get out of this fiasco?
Those words should be carved into the door of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. After all, what’s the harm? Science has its own value.
Values can be negative.
The risk between this and gain of function are very different.
Save the White Rhinoceros if any still exist in this world. Bring back the noble Asiatic Lion that went extinct decades ago. There are many more species that need either saving or resurrecting for which their natural habitat remains. Do that instead.
I am concerned where scientists see the Wholly Mammoths will live in the wild. They are not indigenous to our modern age or climate.
Adorable? Noooooo.
Did you people not pay any attention to the movie? (Or the book?)
what everyone appears to avoid saying is that these experiments might/may lead to human gene engineering; i.e. can a human fertilized ovum be examined, altered (if necessary/desired), and then (re)placed in a receptive uterus
Or a genengineered uterus:
“Over the past few years, the company has developed a suite of tools designed to analyze and edit DNA, among other moonshot endeavors like creating artificial wombs.”
THAT strikes me as having a lot more disruptive potential (for both good and ill) than furry elephants.
How about adapting humans for other planets or to dwell in outer space? Maybe Mars?
why
Long hair? This will not be interesting until they get the mice to grow tusks and trunks.
I think this leads to ordering designer children. A. money making opportunity.
Aren’t they doing this kinda thing already?
Woolly mammoth? Is this a joke? Someone better consult with Baron von Frankenmouse before proceeding.
A new cure for baldness!!!
Not to question this ‘news’, but long haired mice isn’t a new thing.
Look! we bred something that already exists! doesn’t garner headlines though.
Hamsters and guinea pigs?
Milhouse: “Science is its own value.”
If it can be done, it will be done. This leads inevitably to this:
“In reality, of course, if any one age really attains, by eugenics and scientific education, the power to make its descendants what it pleases, all men who live after it are the patients of that power. They are weaker, not stronger: for though we may have put wonderful machines in their hands we have pre-ordained how they are to use them. And if, as is almost certain, the age which had thus attained maximum power over posterity were also the age most emancipated from tradition, it would be engaged in reducing the power of its predecessors almost as drastically as that of its successors. And we must also remember that, quite apart from this, the later a generation comes—the nearer it lives to that date at which the species becomes extinct—the less power it will have in the forward direction, because its subjects will be so few. There is therefore no question of a power vested in the race as a whole steadily growing as long as the race survives. The last men, far from being the heirs of power, will be of all men most subject to the dead hand of the great planners and conditioners and will themselves exercise least power upon the future.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Eugenics was made a dirty word by Hitler’s outrageous conduct, it is not innately bad.
Wrong answer.
Pardon me for being pragmatic, but I see no valuable health end game for either the mouse of humans in general. This sounds like another colossal waste of money and time. Go find a practical cure for cancer!
The value is in the techniques and the lessons learned that can be applied elsewhere.
“but I see no valuable health end game”
Your reaction is typical of how people responded to almost every advance.
This is a very foolish response. Some advances are good, and some are bad. Some are very bad. For example, Gain of Function research advances brought us the Wuhan covid pandemic.
And the dearly departed’s last words were: “Oh, look! It’s soo cute!”
Don’t try to take a selfie with it.
Sci-Fi Author: “In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale.”
Tech Company: “At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don’t Create The Torment Nexus!”
Sure it looked like fun, but then the scientists were kept up all night by the trumpeting.
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