Dire wolves—or something close to it—have returned to our world

Real-life dire wolves: Yet another thing that’s arrived before George R. R. Martin’s next Game of Thrones book.

De-extinction company Colossal Biosciences yesterday announced the “rebirth” of the dire wolf with three new genetically-modified pups, who represent the “world’s first successfully de-extincted animal[s].”

How they did it: The process became possible in 2021, when scientists retrieved DNA from the fossils of dire wolves—a massive species measuring ~3 feet tall and ~6 feet long that went extinct 10,000+ years ago.

• Based on the dire wolf DNA, Colossal researchers made edits to genes of gray wolves to give them key features of dire wolves.
• Embryos were created from those edited gray-wolf cells, then implanted them in surrogate dog mothers.
• The result? Three healthy wolves—two 6-month-old males (Romulus and Remus) and a 2-month-old female (Khaleesi)—that share some dire wolf traits, including their dense, pale coats and abnormally large size.

The company who cried wolf?

However, some scientists outside of Colossal don’t consider Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi to be truly resurrected dire wolves. They note that the animals are likely missing a large portion of the genes that set dire wolves apart from other species. And the new pups also aren’t being raised in dire-wolf packs, nor are they eating a prehistoric diet to acquire their ancestors’ unique intestinal microbes.

Zoom out: Colossal is also currently working to “resurrect” the wooly mammoth, the dodo bird, and the Tasmanian tiger using similar methods.