Can science create them?

Imagine the scene. You will wander in the corridors of a shopping mall, in search of a gift, and suddenly your gaze arises on a leather bag … of dinosaur. And not just any: the Tyrannosaurus rex, or T-Rex, without a doubt the best known at the end of the Cretaceous, immortalized in the film Jurassic Park .

The reign of this tyrant ended 66 million years ago with the cataclysm which caused the extinction of dinosaurs. But a consortium claims to be able to offer him a second life, improbable, by making T-Rex leather. On April 25, 2025, the private laboratories The Organoid Company (Dutch) and Lab-Grown Leather (British) publicly announced the release of luxury accessories for the end of 2025.

To do this, the teams of biologists wish to exploit the collagen of an extinguished predator fossil and analyze its DNA with advanced technologies. It would be a question of introducing this DNA into cells cultivated in the laboratory to obtain the first dinosaur skin in the world. Skin similar to that of an alligator, but biodegradable. It would also make it possible not to use the very controversial slaughter of rare animals.

But in front of this news, fossil specialists hesitate between laughter and tears. “It is currently impossible to recover Dinosaur DNA, Régis Debruyne, paleogenetician at the National Museum of Natural History. The DNA of the T-Rex is 66 million years old and it would be necessary to unearth extremely well preserved fossils to find them. The molecules deteriorate and do not resist the time that passes neither to land conditions. According to the specialist in ancient genetics, the announcement of the two laboratories is therefore a misleading advertising operation, with commercial purposes.

Dodos and mammoths

Because the simple name “T-Rex” may be enough to explode the value of a bag. In fact, the boundaries between science and affairs are fading as soon as there is a question of missing species. In 2025, the American start-up Colossal BioSciences managed to raise $ 200 million to advance its projects worthy of the greatest Hollywood productions. Using biotechnologies, she promises to revive, in flesh, dodos or Tasmania tigers. She even claims to be able to introduce the mammoth, fascinating herbivore of the ice age, in the steppes of Siberia in 2028.

In reality, it will be a question of giving birth to hybrid babies, mid-mammouth, half-elephant. Because the technique does not allow these woolly giants to be recreated as they were 4,000 years ago. It can only combine genetic heritage with that of a still alive cousin species. “And I do not think it is a scientific priority to revive missing animals, judges Éric Buffetaut, paleontologist at the CNRS. Several laboratories are advancing fairly vague environmental issues to justify their approach, but above all they seek to achieve a feat. »»

A fascinating and disturbing feat. Because behind these announced prowess, often bankers, an old human fantasy takes shape: that of shaping nature according to our desire. But to want to rewrite the past too much, science perhaps moves away from its primary vocation: to understand the world as it is, and not recreate it.