Scientists believe they could theoretically bring the dodo out of extinction following a dramatic DNA breakthrough.
The dodo bird, which was wiped off the planet over 500 years ago, was 3ft tall and resided on the island of Mauritius.
Experts managed to successfully sequence the entire genome of the creature, which means they would be able to clone it in the future, UNILad reported.
Scientists could edit a pigeon's DNA to include dodo as the two creatures share a similar genetic makeup, The Telegraph reported.
Beth Shapiro, from a professor at the Royal Society of Medicine, claimed that the dodo's return could be a possibility.
"Mammals are simpler [to clone]," she said.
"If I have a cell and it’s living in a dish in the lab and I edit it so that it has a bit of Dodo DNA, how do I then transform that cell into a whole living, breathing, actual animal?"
But she added that there is more complexity when it comes to the cloning of birds.
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"The way we can do this is to clone it, the same approach that was used to create Dolly the Sheep, but we don't know how to do that with birds because of the intricacies of their reproductive pathways.
"So there needs to be another approach for birds and this is one really fundamental technological hurdle in de-extinction.
"There are groups working on different approaches for doing that and I have little doubt that we are going to get there but it is an additional hurdle for birds that we don’t have for mammals."
Some scientists are hoping that a similar process could be applied to the extinct woolly mammoth.
Experts found preserved specimens of the animal inn Siberia and believe this could be the key to cloning it, The Sun reported.
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