A Texas biotech company says it’s built something nobody else has — artificial eggs that could one day hatch a bird species that’s been dead for centuries.
Colossal Biosciences announced Monday, May 19, 2026, that it has created the synthetic eggs as part of its ongoing effort to bring extinct species back to life. The dodo, wiped out in the late 1600s, is one of the company’s primary targets. So is the moa, a massive flightless bird from New Zealand that disappeared roughly 600 years ago.
Reviving an extinct mammal — cloning a woolly mammoth, say — is one kind of problem. Birds are a different puzzle entirely. You can’t just implant an embryo into a surrogate the way you might with a mammal. Birds develop inside eggs, and the eggs of extinct species don’t exist anymore. That’s the gap Colossal says its artificial egg technology is meant to fill.
The company, based in Dallas, hasn’t disclosed many technical details about how the eggs work or how close they are to actually producing a living chick from one. There’s no timeline for a hatchling, and the science of avian de-extinction remains largely unproven outside the lab.
Colossal has drawn both investment money and skepticism since it launched. The firm has talked publicly about reviving the woolly mammoth and the thylacine — the Tasmanian tiger — in addition to multiple bird species. Critics in the genetics and conservation fields have questioned whether de-extinction is practical or worth the cost when so many living species face threats right now.
None of those debates are settled. What Colossal is saying, for the moment, is that one specific technical barrier — how do you gestate a bird that no longer has an egg? — might have an answer.
The company didn’t say when or whether it plans to attempt an actual hatching.
