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LiveScience
LiveScience
Patrick Pester

Why giant moa — a bird that once towered over humans — are even harder to de-extinct than dire wolves

An AI rendering of the South Island giant moa. .

A biotech company that claims to have brought dire wolves back from extinction has announced plans to resurrect giant extinct birds called moa. However, experts say that dire wolves were never truly resurrected, and that moa will be even harder to de-extinct.

Earlier this month, Texas-based Colossal Biosciences said it had teamed up with filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson and Indigenous partners to bring back the 12-foot-tall (3.6 meter) South Island giant moa (Dinornis robustus) and other moa species. These flightless birds roamed New Zealand until they were hunted to extinction by early Māori settlers around 600 years ago.

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