Breaking mouse news!

It's very cute.

Mar 07, 2025

HELLO. It has been a bit. I had bronchitis. Do not recommend. But forget that because there has been a scientific DEVELOPMENT. A company, Colossal, does genetics work for animal de-extinction purposes. Do I think this is a sensible or reasonable thing? Not really. But did they create a truly Fluffye and Rounde mouse in their weird quest for a woolly mammoth? Yes! And I love it! Behold the floofiest mouse:

A golden colored mouse with long, luxurious, fluffy fur stands before a white background. It has tiny black eyes, a notch in its left ear, and small bare paws and a bare tail. The fur floofs outward and makes it look like a koosh ball. Hoohooheehee!

RIGHT?!? It’s delightful. Want to compare it to a normie mouse? They’ve got you covered:

Two mice before a white background. On the left is a woolly mouse, very round and fluffy. On the right, a more sleek, regular furred mouse. It's a darker brown than the more golden woolly mouse. Both are pretty cute, tbh.

I cannot handle the teeny tiny paws poking out of the fluffy fur. It’s not like a regular mouse is un-cute! But for some reason the extra poofiness levels the cuteness up. Just behold this gif of these rascals:

A looping gif of three woolly mice standing together on a white background. They move about a little, one rubbing its face with its tiny paws. They are all fluffy.

Ho ho! Ahem. I love them. Anyway, here is an amusing graphic from the company that made me think someone on their marketing team knows what they’re doing. The people are here for the adorableness.

An image of a woolly mammoth on a black background that resembles an image of a DNA sequence. Above the mammoth there's text that reads: “We then successfully edited mouse genes to produce mice that display woolly mammoth-like hair. So woolly.” Below the mammoth is an image of a woolly mouse. Green arrows go from the mammoth to the mouse.

Okay, that’s the update for now. Plz don’t ask me about the ethics of a woolly mouse or whether this might all be a clever front to get funding for more reasonable science under the guise of crackpot why-not-ism or even if I think Colossal is a seekrit front for, like, an evil supervillain. Those thoughts are too complicated for this blog.

Just for fun, here’s a funny mouse picture that I found… somewhere. I’m not sourcing it because I’m tired right now. I saved it as “squeaking with you.” It’s been on my hard drive for years.

a small white mouse sits on a sofa and in front of it is a tiny pink touch dial phone with a curly cord. A human hand holds the headset bit of the phone up to the mouse's ears. What does the mouse hear? Unclear, but its little mouse face looks pensive.

Anyhoo, the promised reptile post is coming soon! Have a fun meme for your Friday, and I promise next week’s post will inform and delight.

a rodent stands on top of a tiny plastic house with its front paws in the air. The text says "the person who invented garlic bread" three other rodents are in front of it with text that says "all of humanity"

Sources:

NPR - Hoping to revive mammoths, scientists create “woolly mice”
The Times of India - Technologically pretty cool
Colossal - Instagram
Scientific American - A long title about mammoths and mice
Nature - Meet the “woolly mouse”

Fauna Facts for Friends

4 Comments

Ready for more?