Scientists have produced a new kind of mice using gene editing technology.

Dallas, Texas-based Colossal Biosciences, which resurrects extinct animals, modified the genes of lab mice to reproduce the traits of a prehistoric elephant.

The result were rodents with curly whiskers and wavy, light hair like that of the woolly mammoths, which died out 4,000 years ago.

The experiment was the company’s first step to reproduce by 2028 the ancestor of elephants that lived during the ice age, according to reports.

Meanwhile, New York City rodents need no genetic modification to imitate human antics.

Subway passengers witnessed this firsthand on a rat that rode with them from Queens to Manhattan on 18 February.

As the straphangers moved away from the rat, the rodent climbed one of the stainless steel poles, as shown in a video posted by Amber Jhane on Instagram and reported by the New York Post (NYP).

The video shows the rat deftly twisting itself and doing other moves that impressed US National Pole champ Donna Carnow.

She praised the rat’s grip strength and ability to perform under pressure.

Of course, the rat was not pole-dancing but was simply in survival mode and instinctively trying to escape from the crowd, explained Michael H. Parsons, a senior investigator for the Center for Urban Ecological Solutions, according to NYP.