Bluebuck, A The antelope, with its silvery slate-blue coat and striking horns, lived in the coastal grasslands of South Africa's southwestern Cape region until European settlers hunted it to extinction in about 1800. An American company is now planning to revive the bluebuck as part of its de-extinction efforts.
Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences announced last week that it has created bluebuck The sixth species in its de-extinction portfolio based on genetic engineering, along with three other mammals – the dire wolf, woolly mammoth and the thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger – and two birds, the dodo and the moa.
“We have been working on the Bluebuck project for two years and have already completed many of the foundational steps,” Ben Lamm, CEO and co-founder of Colossal, said in an interview. “We are equally excited about how our technology can help antelopes alive today. Nearly a third of the world's 90 antelope species are endangered or near threatened.”
Prized for the unique color of its hide, the species of bluebuck was hunted to extinction only 34 years after it was first scientifically documented. The animal stood about 1.2 m tall at the shoulder, about 56.5 cm long with swept-back and ringed black horns, and was smaller than the closely related roan and sable antelopes.
“Humans did it. European settlers killed bluebuck off the Cape in less than 34 years. There's no ambiguity about the cause and no ambiguity about responsibility. If we have the ability to right that wrong, I think we have an obligation,” Lamm said.
genome-editing steps
The company announced the birth in April 2025 of three genetically engineered wolf pups created with the help of ancient DNA obtained from the fossilized remains of dire wolves, an Ice Age predator that went extinct about 13,000 years ago. The process used to create them involved editing the genes of the gray wolf, the extinct species' closest living relative, adding dire wolf traits and creating an embryo.
In the case of the bluebuck, Colossal is editing the genes of an African antelope called the roan, its closest living relative.
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“We are now in the genome-editing phase, where we introduce the key bluebuck edits and genes into roan antelope cells,” Lam said.
The plan is that the embryos will be implanted into a surrogate mother. Through cloning, embryos were created from edited gray wolf cells in the Dire Wolf Project, and these were implanted into surrogate pet dog mothers.
Lamm said the company used mounted bluebuck skin, primarily from a young male specimen at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm, to obtain bluebuck DNA.
The team compared the bluebuck and roan genomes to understand what makes the bluebuck unique, Lamm said, noting that the two species are more than 98% identical genomically. The team created pluripotent stem cells in roan deer — “essentially versatile ‘starter cells’ that can become many different types of cells,” Lamm said.
“We have also made breakthroughs in breeding methods, including successfully collecting eggs from antelope species using advanced technologies,” Lam said.
Even as increasing numbers of species have slipped into oblivion due to human actions, including hunting and habitat destruction, scientists have debated the ethics of attempting to revive extinct species.
“Honestly, I think the debate sometimes serves as a way to avoid the difficult conversation, which is that conservation as currently practiced is not winning. We are losing species faster than our current toolkit can handle,” Lamm said.
Colossal called wolves, it created dire wolves and called this species the world's first successfully “extinct” animal. Some outside experts described them as genetically modified gray wolves. “The dire wolves are doing very well,” Lamm said.
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“The three dire wolves live in a 2,000-acre protected, vast ecological reserve that allows us to monitor and manage them while providing a semi-wild habitat for them to thrive. We hope to have more dire wolf pups by the end of the year. We will also have announcements of scientific progress around the mammoth, dodo, thylacine and moa before the end of the year, but all projects are on track,” Lam said. — Will Dunham, (c) 2026 Reuters
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