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Colossal, a leading Texas-based biosciences company working to combat environmental dangers and revive extinct species, has reached a new funding milestone that it says will accelerate its pioneering de-extinction efforts and advancements in genetic engineering. On Wednesday, the company announced it had secured $200 million in Series C funding led by TWG Global, bringing its valuation to $10.2 billion. Founded by entrepreneur Ben Lamm and geneticist Dr. George Church, Colossal Biosciences has quickly become a leader in developing technologies that aim to reverse species extinction using cutting-edge CRISPR technology. Since its launch in September 2021, the company has already achieved...

A stuffed Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) at the Natural History Museum in Berlin, Germany. Image credit: Mazur Travel/Shutterstock.com Scientists claim to have pieced together the most complete genome of a Tasmanian tiger to date – with the help of RNA from a head that’s been preserved in alcohol for over a century. The potential breakthrough is the latest chapter in an effort by Colossal Biosciences and the University of Melbourne’s Thylacine Integrated Genetic Restoration Research (TIGRR) Lab to resurrect the extinct animal, also known as a thylacine. The team estimates that their new genome of the animal is over 99.9...

On September 7, 1936, the last known thylacine, often referred to as the Tasmanian tiger, is believed to have died in captivity in Hobart, Tasmania. Since then, the species, long presumed extinct, has taken on a near-mythical status. The thylacine still captures the public’s imagination, having earned its place as a modern symbol of both loss, and also possibilities. The creature’s unmistakable striped appearance has also helped propel it to its current position as a pop cultural icon and a constant reminder of humanity’s more destructive side. Yet what is perhaps the most intriguing about the thylacine is that, for...

Commentary: A research project to bring the Tasmanian tiger back from oblivion reignites debate about de-extinction. A preserved thylacine body lies curled up on a metal table. Two scientists in white lab coats handle the body. PIC at LINK (Getty) The preserved body of a thylacine being prepared for display in an Australian museum in 2005. When Hank Greely, a law professor at Stanford University, took to the stage at 2013's TEDx De-extinction conference in Washington, DC, he posed a simple question. "De-extinction," he started. "Hubris? Or hope?" The answer, he offered to a smattering of laughter, was "Yes." Greely's...

Nearly 90 years after the last thylacine died, a group of scientists at the University of Melbourne, Australia, are attempting to bring the extinct marsupial back to life Thylacines, also known as Tasmanian tigers (despite being a marsupial and looking nothing like a tiger apart from their stripy back), are thought to have gone extinct back in 1936, when Benjamin – the last confirmed member of the species – died in captivity at Hobart’s Beaumaris Zoo. Reports of thylacine sightings in the wild continued long after Benjamin died, with many people hopeful that they might still be alive out there...

The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, is one of Australia's most iconic species. Even though it has been extinct since 1936, the slender, striped marsupial maintains its place in Australian mythology because of a constant string of supposed sightings that has captivated the public and the media. Just last year, one group claimed to have spotted the "Tassie tiger" padding through Australia's forests. The claims were never verified. Sadly, the Tasmanian tiger is gone -- but with advances in biotechnology, that might not have to be the case. A group of researchers from the University of Melbourne plan to bring the...

A Principal component analysis of ontogenetic cranial shape for each species included in the study. PC1 represents age-related shape change (left to right), whereas PC2 separates herbivorous and carnivorous taxa. The thylacine and wolf display parallel similarities throughout ontogeny, compared with other marsupials. B–D Subsampling of cranial shape into bone groups with shared embryonic tissue origins. The thylacine and wolf show shape overlap between bones of B FNP and D MES origin, but not in bones of C PA origin. Animal images were used under CC BY 4.0 open licence. ================================================================== Micro-CT scanning and digital reconstructions have been used to...

A breed of sea snake thought to be extinct for years was recently discovered off the west coast of Australia, another in a string of similar findings among species scientists believed were lost forever. It was the first time the species of snakes was seen in more than 15 years since disappearing from the Timor Sea, according to researchers at Australia's James Cook University who identified the snakes. The discovery of the Short Nose sea snake was confirmed after an Australia Parks and Wildlife officer sent a photo to researchers for identification, the university said. The study's lead author, Blanche...

Many people still believe the Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) survives in the wilds of Tasmania, even though the species was declared extinct over eighty years ago. Sightings and reports of the elusive carnivorous marsupial, which was the top predator on the island, pop-up almost as frequently as those of Bigfoot in North America, but to date no definitive evidence has emerged of its survival. Yet, a noted cryptozoologist (one who searches for hidden animals), Dr. Karl Shuker, wrote recently that tiger hunters should perhaps turn their attention to a different island: New Guinea. The Tasmanian tiger, also known as the...

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A comparison of museum specimens has found that thylacines on mainland Australia were smaller than those that persisted into modern times in Tasmania, and significantly smaller than dingoes. The last known Tasmanian thylacine died in 1936. Measurements of the head size and thickness of limb bones of the semi-fossilised remains of thylacines and dingoes from caves in Western Australia have revealed that, on average, dingoes were larger than thylacines. “In particular, dingoes were almost twice as large as female thylacines, which were not much bigger than a fox,” says ecologist Dr Mike Letnic, an ARC Future Fellow in the UNSW...

Source: University of New South Wales Date: September 5, 2007 Tasmanian Tiger No Match For Dingo Science Daily — The wily dingo out-competed the much larger marsupial thylacine by being better built anatomically to resist the "mechanical stresses" associated with killing large prey, say Australian scientists. Despite being armed with a more powerful and efficient bite and having larger energy needs than the dingo, the thylacine was restricted to eating relatively small prey while the dingo's stronger head and neck anatomy allowed it to subdue large prey as well. Earlier studies had given ambiguous results regarding the size of prey...

Dog doubts over Tasmanian tiger By Jonathan Amos BBC News Online science staff TASMANIAN 'TIGER' * The thylacine was a large marsupial carnivore * It ranged widely from Papua New Guinea to Tasmania * Many scientists doubt cloning technology can bring it back The dingo it seems had an accomplice in driving the Tasmanian "tiger" off mainland Australia - human hunters. There appears little doubt the famous feral dog out-competed the tiger for food and helped push it back to its final island habitat 3,000 years ago. But researchers say changes in Aboriginal land use, population size and technology taking...

Australian team has copied parts of DNA but faces huge odds A team of Australian scientists pledged yesterday to salve their country's conscience by bringing a cloned Tasmanian tiger back to the island where it was hunted to extinction more than 60 years ago. They announced that they had succeeded in copying small fragments of DNA from pickled tiger pups, suggesting that it might one day be possible to assemble the animal's entire set of genes and clone it back into existence. "We are now further ahead than any other project that has attempted anything remotely similar using extinct DNA,"...

Downfall of the Yarri, or Will the real Thylacoleo please stand up? Darren Naish In 1926 A. S. le Souef and Harry Burrell included the ‘Striped marsupial cat’ in their influential popular volume The Wild Animals of Australasia. Concerning a cryptid reported from Australia and usually termed the Queensland tiger, their decision was significant as few cryptids have been regarded so sympathetically by non-cryptozoologists. This near-acceptance reflected both the apparent quality and consistency of eyewitness accounts as well as the long-standing academic interest there had been in the creature. First brought to attention by European Australians in the 1870s,...

THE long-held belief Tasmanian tigers killed livestock is being challenged. Using advanced computer modelling, an Australian research team has found that, while strong-jawed, the thylacine would have had trouble killing and eating prey any larger than itself. From about 1830 until 1909 the Tasmanian Government paid a 1-a-head bounty,

'Sighting' of Tasmanian tiger sparks £1.2m bounty hunt By Anna Gizowska in Sydney (Filed: 03/04/2005) Officially, the last of their kind died out more than half a century ago, their downfall brought about because white settlers believed they had a voracious appetite for sheep. Now the Tasmanian tiger is once again the subject of a manhunt - this time to prove that the species still exists. The Tasmanian tiger was officially declared extinct in 1986 After dramatic claims by a German tourist to have seen one of the mysterious, meat-eating marsupials lurking deep in the Tasmanian wilderness, Australian magazines and...

Scientists have detailed a significant proportion of the genes found in the extinct Tasmanian "tiger". The international team extracted the hereditary information from the hair of preserved animal remains held in Swedish and US museums. The information has allowed scientists to confirm the tiger's evolutionary relationship to other marsupials. The study, reported in the journal Genome Research, may also give pointers as to why some animals die out. The two tigers examined had near-identical DNA, suggesting there was very little genetic diversity in the species when it went over the edge. I want to learn as much as I can...

A University of Adelaide project led by zoologist Dr Jeremy Austin is investigating whether the world-fabled Tasmanian Tiger may have survived beyond its reported extinction in the late 1930s. Dr Austin from the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA is extracting ancient DNA from animal droppings found in Tasmania in the late 1950s and ‘60s, which have been preserved in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. “The scats (droppings) were found by Eric Guiler, Australia’s last real thylacine expert, who said he thought it more probable they came from the Tasmanian Tiger rather than a dog, Tasmanian Devil or quoll,” Dr...

This week’s column is somewhat different in that the focus is not on a long-lost motion picture classic or a bizarre bit of cult-worthy obscurity. Instead, the film in question is a brief ribbon of celluloid that provides the final glimpse of an animal that fell victim to years of brutal persecution and government-sponsored hunting. The film itself does not have a formal title, and it is called “Footage of the Last Thylacine” just for the sake of temporary identification. What was a thylacine? It looked like a canine, but it was actually a marsupial that was concentrated in Tasmania....