"Woolly mammoths" could be brought back from extinction within two years, the scientists behind a groundbreaking resurrection project have said.

World-renowned geneticist Prof George Church and his team at Harvard University have been working for the past two years on recreating the DNA blueprint of the mammoth.

They have used DNA from mammoths that were preserved in Arctic permafrost to look for the genes that separated them from elephants, such as those with code for a shaggy coat, big ears and antifreeze blood.

By splicing the mammoth genes into the genome of an elephant embryo, the team believe they can recreate a mammoth-elephant hybrid, which would have all the recognisable features of a mammoth.