Artificial eggshell comes first in attempt to revive giant flightless moa

De-extinction firm Colossal Biosciences hopes incubation system can be scaled up but other scientists are sceptical

The flightless moa, an extinct bird of New Zealand, stood more than 3 metres tall, weighed over 200kg and had eggs larger than those of any bird now living.

Now the de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences says it is a step closer to resurrecting the moa after creating an artificial eggshell.

Colossal hopes the artificial incubation system, which it successfully used to hatch chickens, could be scaled up to create a bird as big as the moa in future. “We’ve created a novel shell-less culture system that is fully scalable and biologically accurate,” said Prof Andrew Pask, the chief biology officer at Colossal.