Colossal Biosciences Is Working to Bring Back the Bluebuck, an Antelope Hunted to Extinction in 1800

Colossal Biosciences is working to de-extinct the bluebuck, a species of South African antelope that was hunted to extinction by European colonists around 1800 — making it the first antelope and the first African megafauna added to the company’s active de-extinction portfolio. The announcement, made April 30, 2026, adds the bluebuck to a roster that already includes the woolly mammoth, dire wolf, thylacine, dodo, and moa.

What Is the Bluebuck and Why Did It Go Extinct?

The bluebuck (Hippotragus leucophaeus) was a trim antelope native to South Africa, standing roughly 4 feet tall at the shoulder and stretching 10 feet from nose to rump. Its defining feature was a singular gray-blue coat — irresistible to European colonists who arrived in South Africa around 1650. Within approximately 150 years, hunting pressure drove the species to extinction. The last confirmed bluebuck was killed around 1800. Today the animal survives only in naturalist drawings and museum specimens, including a tissue sample now held at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

Why the Bluebuck Matters for Antelope Conservation

The bluebuck project addresses a documented conservation crisis across antelope species globally. Of the 90 antelope species in the world, 55 are experiencing declining populations and 29 are currently threatened with extinction, according to Colossal. The bluebuck’s de-extinction is designed not only to resurrect a lost species but to build genetic tools transferable to living endangered antelope populations.

“African antelopes have long been neglected in global conservation. The bluebuck de-extinction project changes that. We’re bringing back a species that played a vital role in its ecosystem, and building the scientific foundation for antelope conservation before more of its relatives are lost.” — Beth Shapiro, Chief Science Officer, Colossal Biosciences

How Colossal Will Bring the Bluebuck Back

Colossal Biosciences will use the roan antelope — a close surviving relative of the bluebuck that ranges across sub-Saharan Africa — as both the genetic reference species and the surrogate. Researchers began by sequencing a bluebuck genome from a tissue specimen borrowed from the Swedish Museum of Natural History, using 40-fold coverage: sequencing each base pair 40 times to ensure accuracy. Comparing that sequence to the roan’s genome revealed that the two species differ by approximately 3% of their overall genome — but that 3% represents 18 million sequence variants.

Not all 18 million variants are relevant to the bluebuck’s defining physical traits. Colossal genome engineer Scott Barish explains the filtering process: “We filtered them and got to about three million variants. Then we got it down to 2.4 million truly functional regions of the genome, and then narrowed our focus to what are truly key phenotypes and got down to about 20,000. It’s so much more manageable but still an imposing number.” The team’s goal is to further distill that list to the small set of edits that express the bluebuck’s characteristic blue-gray coat, body size, and other defining traits — similar to the 20 edits on 14 genes used to convert a gray wolf genome into a dire wolf.

Once the key edits are identified, researchers will rewrite the DNA in a roan cell, extract the modified nucleus, and implant it into an enucleated roan egg. That egg will be allowed to develop into an embryo, then implanted into a roan surrogate for a 278-day gestation period — after which, if the process succeeds, a roan mother will give birth to a bluebuck calf.

A New Platform for Conservation Genetics: Roan iPSCs

A significant parallel advance from the bluebuck project is Colossal’s successful conversion of adult roan antelope cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) — undifferentiated cells capable of developing into any specialized cell type, including nerve, cardiac, blood, and bone cells. iPSCs allow Colossal researchers to test the effects of genetic edits on tissue grown in a lab rather than on a live animal — a capability that is particularly valuable for rare and endangered species where every individual is critical.

“That matters enormously for species where every individual counts,” said Shapiro. “We’re building this platform for bluebuck but the conservation adaptations for living antelope species…are just as significant as the de-extinction work itself.” The roan iPSC platform represents a transferable toolkit that Colossal and partner conservation organizations can apply to other threatened antelope species beyond the bluebuck.

Where Will Bluebucks Live Once They’re Revived?

Colossal Biosciences is partnering with the nonprofit Advanced Conservation Strategies to navigate regulatory and habitat requirements for potential bluebuck reintroduction. Unlike the three dire wolves — which live in a secured 2,000-acre private enclosure — the long-term goal for bluebucks is wild release in suitable southern African habitat, with herds large enough to be genetically self-sustaining. Whether that habitat will include the species’ original South African range is not yet determined.

“Bringing the bluebuck back is only half the work,” said Ben Lamm, CEO and co-founder of Colossal Biosciences. “The other half is making sure the world is ready to protect it when it returns. That means working across governments, conservation organizations, and international regulatory bodies to establish formal protections that follow the bluebuck wherever it lives, not just in a single reserve, but across the southern African landscape it once called home.”

The Bluebuck in Context: Colossal’s De-Extinction Portfolio

The bluebuck announcement expands Colossal Biosciences’ active de-extinction work across six species. The company’s highest-profile milestone to date was the birth of three dire wolf pups — produced by editing 20 sites across 14 genes in a gray wolf genome — representing the first confirmed de-extinction of a species that had been absent from Earth for more than 10,000 years. Colossal is also targeting a woolly mammoth birth by 2028, alongside ongoing work on the thylacine, dodo, and moa. The bluebuck marks the company’s first African species and its first antelope, broadening the conservation scope of its genetic platform into new ecological territory.

This story is based on original reporting by Jeffrey Kluger for TIME. Read the full feature on TIME →