Honestly, the idea of a woolly mammoth wandering through a snowy landscape sounds like a scene ripped straight from a Spielberg storyboard. But here we are, sitting in 2026, and the chatter about what extinct animals are coming back in 2027 has reached a fever pitch. It isn't just sci-fi anymore.
Geneticists are basically playing the world’s most complex game of "connect the dots" with ancient DNA. We’ve moved past the "can we?" phase and jumped headfirst into "when will it happen?"
The short answer? 2027 is the target year for a few specific projects that might actually put "functional" versions of lost species back on the map. But don't expect a literal Jurassic Park. It's more like a highly edited remix of the past.
The Woolly Mammoth: 2027’s Biggest Celebrity
If you’ve been following the news, you know Colossal Biosciences is the big name here. They’ve been very vocal about their 2027 goal for the woolly mammoth. But let's be real for a second: they aren't actually "cloning" a mammoth.
You can't clone something when the DNA is shattered into millions of tiny, degraded pieces. Instead, they are taking the Asian elephant—which is basically a 99.6% genetic match—and using CRISPR to swap in the "mammoth" bits. We're talking about the genes for shaggy hair, small ears (to prevent frostbite), and those massive fat deposits that help an animal survive -40°C.
Ben Lamm and Dr. George Church have been the driving forces behind this. They recently hit a massive milestone by creating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) for elephants. That sounds like jargon, but it’s basically the "master key" for genetic engineering.
The goal for 2027 isn't to have a herd of thousands. It’s to produce the first calves. These "mammophants" will look like mammoths, act like mammoths, and hopefully, start fixing the Arctic tundra by stomping down snow and letting the cold air reach the permafrost.
The Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine) Progress
While the mammoth gets the headlines, the thylacine might actually be the more successful project in the short term. It went extinct in 1936 when the last one, Benjamin, died in a zoo.
Why is it closer? Marsupials.
Unlike elephants, who have a grueling 22-month pregnancy, marsupials have incredibly short gestation periods. They give birth to tiny, bean-sized babies that do most of their growing in a pouch. Scientists at the TIGRR Lab in Melbourne, working with Colossal, have already sequenced a 99.9% complete genome from a preserved head.
They are using the fat-tailed dunnart as the surrogate. It’s a tiny creature, but because the thylacine baby is so small at birth, the dunnart can actually carry it. By 2027, we might see the first "functional" thylacine joeys. They won't be 100% the same as the ones that roamed Tasmania a century ago, but they’ll have the stripes and the carnivorous jaw.
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The Dodo Bird: More Than a Punchline
The dodo is the poster child for "stupid" extinction, even though it wasn't actually stupid—it just didn't know what a predator was. Bringing it back is a different beast because bird reproduction is a nightmare for geneticists. You can't just edit an embryo in a womb; you have to deal with the eggshell.
The breakthrough came recently when researchers successfully cultured primordial germ cells (PGCs) from pigeons. They are using the Nicobar pigeon as the blueprint.
The timeline for the dodo is a bit more "squishy" than the mammoth, but 2027 is a year where we expect to see the first successful "surrogate" hatches. Imagine a chicken or a pigeon laying an egg, and out pops a dodo. It’s weird. It’s slightly unsettling. But it’s happening.
What "Coming Back" Actually Means
We need to manage expectations. If you’re looking for what extinct animals are coming back in 2027, you have to understand the term "proxy species."
A proxy isn't a perfect copy. It’s a modern animal that has been edited to fulfill the ecological role of an extinct one.
- The Mammoth: An elephant with a winter coat.
- The Thylacine: A dunnart-derived carnivore with tiger stripes.
- The Dodo: A flightless, heavy-set pigeon.
The ethics are messy. Some scientists, like those from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), argue that we should spend this money on animals that are still alive. Why spend millions on a mammoth when the African elephant is sliding toward extinction?
But the counter-argument is that the tech developed here—like the artificial wombs and gene-editing breakthroughs—will actually save the living. We're already seeing this with the Black-footed ferret, which was cloned from 30-year-old frozen cells to boost genetic diversity.
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The 2027 Reality Check: What to Look For
As we get closer to 2027, the focus is going to shift from the lab to the "rewilding" sites.
- Pleistocene Park: This is a massive experimental area in Siberia. If the mammoth calves are born in 2027, they won't be shipped there immediately. They’ll need years of socialization.
- Tasmanian Bush: There are already groups preparing protected areas for the return of the thylacine.
- Mauritius: The government there is already working on habitat restoration so the dodo has somewhere to actually be a dodo.
It’s easy to get cynical about billionaires playing God. But there's something undeniably human about trying to fix a mistake we made. We hunted these animals to the finish line. Bringing them back isn't just about the spectacle; it’s about testing if our technology has finally caught up to our curiosity.
Next Steps for Tracking Progress:
- Monitor Colossal Biosciences' Public Data: They have committed to transparency in their "woolly mouse" and "dire wolf" (modified grey wolf) projects, which serve as the testing ground for the 2027 mammoth launch.
- Follow the TIGRR Lab (University of Melbourne): This is the hub for thylacine research. They frequently publish updates on the "marsupial pouch" tech which is essential for the 2027 timeline.
- Review IUCN De-extinction Guidelines: Familiarize yourself with the "Guiding Principles on Creating Proxies" to understand why these 2027 animals won't be exactly what you see in museums.