You might know dire wolves from the popular TV series Game of Thrones. Yes, unlike the rest of the story, those wolves are real and actually existed on Earth more than 10,000 years ago.
Scientists at Colossal Biosciences, a generic engineering company, announced it created them, and claim that the species has now become ‘de-extinct’.
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They used to live in the Ice Age
Dire wolves lived in the Ice Age hunting mammoths and other large mammals, and when their prey went extinct, with time, so did they. It was over 10,000 years ago since the last living dire wolf died.
Scientists now claim they’ve brought them back
Scientists at the American genetic engineering company Colossal Biosciences claim they have been able to create dire wolves and bring them back from extinction.
The company announced that it created three dire wolf puppies using “deft genetic engineering and ancient DNA.”
The company explained the process of ‘de-extinction’
Colossal Biosciences wrote on its website, “On October 1, 2024, for the first time in human history, Colossal successfully restored a once-eradicated species through the science of de-extinction.”
“After a 10,000+ year absence, our team is proud to return the dire wolf to its rightful place in the ecosystem.”
They claim to have revived the extinct species
The company added, “Colossal’s innovations in science, technology and conservation made it possible to accomplish something that’s never been done before: the revival of a species from its longstanding population of zero.”
The dire wolves were made using other DNA
The dire wolf puppies Colossal Biosciences said they created were made using a mix of gray wolf DNA and ancient dire wolf DNA.
This is because, as you can imagine, technology has yet to reach the point where creating a 100% replica of an extinct species is easily doable.
Other experts think this creation isn’t a dire wolf
While Colossal Biosciences claims it created the dire wolf, other experts dispute this claim, saying the three puppies created were not actual dire wolves.
Speaking with the BBC, Zoologist Philip Seddon from the University of Otago, in New Zealand said they were just “genetically modified gray wolves.”
Another expert also disputes it
Paleogeneticist Dr Nic Rawlence, from Otago University also spoke with the publication and explained exactly what happens to ancient DNA.
“Ancient DNA is like if you put fresh DNA in a 500 degree oven overnight,” he said. “It comes out fragmented – like shards and dust. You can reconstruct [it], but it’s not good enough to do anything else with.”
He says the new ‘dire wolves’ are actually just gray wolves
Dr. Rawlence also added, “So what Colossal has produced is a gray wolf, but it has some dire wolf-like characteristics, like a larger skull and white fur. It’s a hybrid.”
A professor in evolutionary genomics based at the Centre for Palaeogenetics at Stockholm University, who advised Colossal, Love Dalén, shared a similar opinion on the matter.
Dalén said the wolf is mostly a gray wolf
Speaking with CNN, Dalén said, “There’s no secret that across the genome, this is 99.9% gray wolf. There is going to be an argument in the scientific community regarding how many genes need to be changed to make a dire wolf, but this is really a philosophical question.”
While the wolf is mostly a gray wolf, it carries dire wolf genes
“It carries dire wolf genes, and these genes make it look more like a dire wolf than anything we’ve seen in the last 13,000 years. And that is very cool,” Dalén added.
Colossal biologist, Dr Beth Shapiro, said dire wolves and gray wolves share “really similar” genetics, so in the process they “targeted DNA sequences that lead to dire wolf traits and then edited grey wolf cells” which resulted in “cloned cells” to create dire wolves.