Look: How Extinct Animals Like Dodo, Woolly Mammoth Are 'Resurrecting' In Dubai

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)

The project at the Museum of the Future has been dubbed the world’s first Colossal BioVault and World Preservation Lab

** PUBLISHED:** Sun 8 Feb 2026, 8:22 AM

By:

Nasreen Abdulla

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Imagine watching long-extinct species like the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger and dodos coming to life in front of your eyes. That is the experience Dubai residents will soon be able to enjoy at the Museum of the Future (MOTF).

This is part of a partnership with Colossal Biosciences, a pioneering firm that stores and protects cells and genetic material from endangered species to achieve breakthroughs in biotechnology and de-extinction sciences.

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The project has been dubbed the world’s first Colossal BioVault and World Preservation Lab. It stores and protects cells and genetic material from endangered species, so that biodiversity that exists today can be resurrected to support healthy ecosystems in the future.

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The experience

Visitors to the World Government Summit 2026 were treated to at an exclusive first look of the exhibition at the MOTF stand. Using a combination of AI and graphics, the company has brought to life an experiential display which introduces visitors to the traits and features of these extinct animals.

Visitors to the stand are first escorted into a room where they are shown a video about the grave dangers faced by certain species in the region. It shared how over one million animal and plant species were threatened with extinction, with a part of that loss unfolding in the UAE.

The video highlighted the status of the Arabian leopard and Hawksbill turtle as critically endangered and showed the precarious levels of the striped hyena and Arabian tahr.

However, the video stated that there was a new kind of hope by the power of DNA.“The UAE is working to harness the power through the world’s first de-extinction toolkit,” it said.“Sequencing DNA, preserving species, editing traits, and developing the reproductive methods needed to prevent extinction. With these tools, humanity is not just protecting life, we are rebuilding it.”

After the video, visitors are asked to step into a dark room where three separate enclosures introduce them to the three animals in the spotlight - woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger and dodos. According to a presenter, this is a“new chapter in conservation”, built from the code of life.

The breakthrough

Colossal Biosciences shot to fame last year after they“resurrected” three extinct dire wolves using a combination of ancient DNA, cloning and gene-editing technologies. However, scientists noted that a clone of an extinct species is not possible, and that the animals are effectively hybrids of gray wolves and their long-extinct dire wolf ancestors.

According to information at the exhibition, the de-extinction process is done very carefully using DNA preserved in the remaining body parts of these extinct animals and then reconstructing the species. In the case of the woolly mammoth, precise genetic edits are made to introduce mammoth-specific traits into the cells of its closest living relative - the elephant.

Similarly, for dodos, the edits are made to genes of Nicobar pigeons. In the case of Thylacine - often called the Tasmanian tiger - the edits are made on the fat-tailled dunnart.

Colossal scientists were able to achieve a major scientific milestone by assembling the most complete and accurate genome of the thylacine to date using DNA recovered from exceptionally preserved historical specimens.

Impact

This work not only helps recreate extinct species but also helps current species. The work on woolly mammoth has led to new insights into elephant biology and has helped develop a vaccine for elephant edoptheliotropic herpes virus which is a highly fatal disease. Rewilding the woolly mammoth in the Arctic can potentially restore several plant and animal species that had disappeared.

In Tasmania, for thousands of years, thylacines helped regulate prey populations and stabilise food webs. Their disappearance disrupted these relationships, contributing to ecological imbalance and increased fragmentation. Restoring the thylacine’s role has the potential to strengthen biodiversity and improve the resilience of Tasmania’s native landscapes.

Meanwhile, initial rewilding of the dodos in Mauritius will begin with a small number of dodos in carefully selected, protected areas, allowing their health, behaviour and ecological impact to be closely monitored.

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