On 2026-04-30, Colossal Biosciences announced the bluebuck as its sixth de-extinction target, after woolly mammoth, dire wolf, thylacine, dodo, and moa. The bluebuck, a South African antelope hunted to extinction around 1800, is now the company’s first antelope and first African megafauna project. Colossal said it has acquired bluebuck DNA, sequenced it, and compared it with living relatives; CEO Ben Lamm said the program has entered the hardest stage: genomic editing, with a first birth projected around 2028 and a nine-month gestation via surrogate.
Technically, the project shows that extinct-species work is shifting from specimen recovery to comparative genomics, surrogate species selection, and precise genome editing. Colossal’s choice of the roan antelope as the closest living reference indicates that restoration will likely produce a functional proxy rather than a perfect clone. For lunar habitation and existential resilience, that matters because the same methods could support long-term DNA preservation, species backup libraries, and future restoration of agriculture, pollinators, or keystone fauna after catastrophe.
Ark priority: track whether this program produces validated methods for ancient DNA assembly, embryo development in surrogates, and phenotype reconstruction, not just publicity claims. The team should monitor timelines, failure rates, and any published protocols that could be adapted for cryopreserved Ark genomes, especially for livestock, nitrogen-fixing symbionts, and ecologically critical species. If the 2028 birth target holds, the project could become a real-world benchmark for how much biodiversity can be computationally and biologically recoverable from partial DNA records.