Digital illustration of a group of mammoths of all ages walking

Mammoth Illustration by Shane Rebenschied;
Diagram Illustration by Kate Francis; Shutterstock.com (all images)

STANDARDS

NGSS: Core Idea: LS3.A, LS2.A, LS2.C, ETS2.B

CCSS: Reading Informational Text: 8

TEKS: 6.13C, 7.5D, 8.13B, B.13D

Modern-Day Mammoths?

What would it be like if prehistoric creatures once again roamed Earth?

AS YOU READ, THINK ABOUT how reintroducing an animal that has become extinct could affect an ecosystem.

Seeing a herd of mammoths roaming close to a town today would be a surprising sight. That’s because the massive animals haven’t existed on Earth for about 10,000 years! Mammoths lived during the ice age when sheets of ice covered most of what is now Europe, Asia, and North America. Beyond this frozen expanse stretched the tundra, a dry and cold region of grasslands that bison, horses, reindeer, and mammoths called home. Even though mammoths haven’t roamed the tundra for thousands of years, a U.S.-based company wants to “de-extinct,” or bring back, the animals and reintroduce them into the wild.

Colossal Biosciences plans to create a hybrid animal—a combination of a woolly mammoth and its closest living relative, the Asian elephant. Reviving the mammoth would provide a glimpse of a real-life prehistoric creature, says Ben Lamm, the co-founder of Colossal. “People have a childlike wonder to see what used to be here,” he says. Lamm believes that bringing back mammoths and other extinct animals could also benefit the planet (see Making a Comeback). He thinks their return may improve the health of their former ecosystems—communities of organisms interacting with their nonliving environments.

But some scientists aren’t so sure the company’s efforts will be successful—or if they should even try creating a mammoth hybrid. Critics say it’s hard to know if these animals would be able to survive in our modern world and whether they could cause more harm than good.

CREATING A MAMMOTH

Here’s how Colossal Biosciences plans to create a mammoth-elephant hybrid.

Illustration of a baby elephant and a close-up showing its mammoth DNA

Mammoth Illustration by Shane Rebenschied; Diagram Illustration by Kate Francis;

1. Scientists have found the frozen bodies of well-preserved woolly mammoths in Alaska, Canada, and Russia. Based on their DNA, Colossal identified genes for traits that allowed the animals to live in the frigid tundra.

Illustration of mammoth DNA being inserted into the Asian elephant genome

Mammoth Illustration by Shane Rebenschied; Diagram Illustration by Kate Francis;

2. Using CRISPR technology to edit DNA, scientists remove parts of the Asian elephant’s genome—the complete set of hereditary material—and insert genes for desired mammoth traits.

Illustration of the Asian elephant egg cell and the edited genome

Mammoth Illustration by Shane Rebenschied; Diagram Illustration by Kate Francis;

3. Scientists remove the nucleus, or center that contains DNA, from an elephant’s egg cell. The edited genome, inside a new cell’s nucleus, is put into the egg cell. An electric pulse fuses the two.

Illustration of an elephant, the embryo, and the artificial womb

Mammoth Illustration by Shane Rebenschied; Diagram Illustration by Kate Francis;

4. The fused cell begins to divide, forming an embryo. The embryo is implanted into the womb of a female Asian elephant or grown in a lab inside an artificial womb.

Illustration of a mammoth-elephant hybrid calf

Mammoth Illustration by Shane Rebenschied; Diagram Illustration by Kate Francis;

5. After developing for 22 months, a mammoth-elephant hybrid calf is born.

Image of a mummified baby mammoth

Aaron Tam/AFP via Getty Images

TRAPPED IN TIME: The body of this 42,000-year-old baby mammoth, named Lyuba, was discovered in Russia in 2007. Its body was well-preserved after being encased in mud.  

CHANGED LANDSCAPE

Woolly mammoths towered up to 3.7 meters (12 feet) tall and weighed up to 8 tons. Because of their enormous size, they had a big impact on the tundra’s landscape. The herbivores trampled shrubs and trees and dug up the ground with their tusks while searching for plants to eat. Their poop fertilized the soil. This helped ancient grasslands grow. Today in the tundra, “a lot of that same plant life still exists,” says Lamm, “but its ecosystems aren’t thriving as they used to.” And moss, shrubs, and trees have replaced some grasslands.

The tundra has changed in other ways as well. Beneath the ground’s surface lies permafrost, a layer of soil that remains permanently frozen. In recent years, warming temperatures brought on by climate change have led permafrost to thaw. As a result, huge amounts of greenhouse gases once locked in the icy ground are now being released. These gases trap heat in Earth’s atmosphere, further contributing to climate change.

Colossal hopes that returning mammoths to the tundra will again promote the growth of grasslands. Grasses absorb less sunlight than trees, keeping the ground cooler and helping to maintain permafrost. The animals would also disturb snow cover, which normally prevents cold air from reaching the ground. This would help keep the soil frozen. But there’s a lot to do before a mammoth-like creature can be reintroduced.

Photo of a mammoth fossil in a museum

Uwe Deffner/Alamy Stock Photo

TREMENDOUS TUSKS: Woolly mammoths used their huge tusks to forage for food, fight other mammoths, and defend against predators.

BACK FROM THE DEAD

Colossal’s scientists plan to create a hybrid mammoth by altering an Asian elephant’s DNA—the molecule that carries hereditary information. They’ll use a technology called CRISPR to insert 65 mammoth genes. These units of hereditary material code for traits that allowed mammoths to survive on the frozen tundra. The traits include a shaggy coat of hair and a thick layer of fat. Scientists identified the genes by studying DNA from preserved mammoth remains. “We want to see these animals in the wild thriving and being able to completely sustain themselves,” says Eriona Hysolli, a geneticist who heads the team creating Colossal’s hybrid mammoth.

Scientists then plan to harvest eggs, or female reproductive cells, from Asian elephants—something that’s never been done. Next, they’ll insert the edited DNA into one of the eggs to create an embryo—the earliest stage of an organism’s development (see Creating a Mammoth). Hysolli’s team will then implant the embryo into the womb of a female Asian elephant, where it will gestate, or develop into a baby mammoth.

In the next phase of the study, Hysolli’s team will try gestating the embryo inside a saclike device filled with fluid. It will serve as an artificial womb. Other scientists have already begun experimenting with this technology, but none have successfully gestated a baby animal. “This type of technology has not yet been used successfully,” says Matthew Cobb, a zoologist at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom who isn’t involved with the project.

WORTH THE RISK?

Even if Colossal can create a living, breathing mammoth-elephant hybrid, Cobb worries about the animal’s welfare. Because a mammoth calf will look different from a typical elephant, its mother may reject it. And a hybrid grown in an artificial womb would have no birth mother at all. Mother elephants teach their children important behaviors, like how to interact with other members of their species and find food. Cobb wonders if a hybrid mammoth would be able to survive in the wild without this nurturing.

Cobb is also concerned about how the hybrid mammoths would interact with modern surroundings and problems they could create. He cites examples of Asian elephants in India that trample and raid farmlands for food. Additionally, Cobb says Asian elephants are often struck by cars as they attempt to cross roads.

No one knows for certain what might happen to the tundra if mammoths were brought back in. “We have very little idea how they might affect the ecosystem,” says Cobb. Mammoths’ ability to alter the tundra to protect against future climate change is just as uncertain. Cobb suspects any impact would be minimal. “I don’t think they could make it worse, but I don’t think there will be a measurable effect,” he says.

Colossal estimates that a mammoth hybrid won’t be created until at least 2027 or released into the tundra until at least 2033. In the meantime, Lamm says, the company is collaborating with wildlife groups and Native peoples to carefully consider any issues that could arise from the animals’ reintroduction. Colossal’s wild plan to bring back the mammoth won’t be easy. It will take a large team of scientists equipped with cutting-edge techniques to succeed. But if scientists do manage to bring back an extinct prehistoric creature, who knows what other ancient animals they might bring back next?

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Lesson: Modern-Day Mammoths?

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