Dinosaurs could soon be back. Genetic engineering company Colossal claims it is close to bringing back extinct species. The company has plans to resurrect the moa – a 3.6-metre-tall, flightless bird that once lived in New Zealand. However, it was hunted to extinction 600 years ago. Colossal said: "We're bringing back avian dinosaurs." It will mix DNA from a dead moa with the genome of an emu to recreate the extinct bird.
Colossal's "de-extinction" projects are controversial among the scientific community. Colossal defines de-extinction as: "Generating an organism that both resembles and is genetically similar to an extinct species." It says de-extinction will let scientists protect endangered animals. Species will "thrive" amid climate change. However, critics say extinct animals cannot be replicated. Scientists worry about the impact of putting "hybrid" species into the wild.
Try the same news story at these levels:
De-extinction - Level 5 or De-extinction - Level 6
Sources- https://www.livescience.com/animals/extinct-species/were-bringing-back-avian-dinosaurs-de-extinction-company-claims-it-will-resurrect-the-giant-moa-in-next-10-years
- https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/09/science/giant-moa-colossal-biosciences
- https://colossal.com/de-extinction/
Make sure you try all of the online activities for this reading and listening - There are dictations, multiple choice activities, drag and drop activities, sentence jumbles, which word activities, text reconstructions, spelling, gap fills and a whole lot more. Please enjoy :-)