SCIENTISTS have brought back Dire Wolves from the dead in the world’s first-ever de-extinction project.
Dire Wolves were large, white-coated canines that disappeared 13,000 years ago – but now three pups have been born back into the world.
6
6
6
A genetic engineering company called Colossal Biosciences created the litter – which they have named Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi.
The beasts once roamed North and South America before disappearing – likely due to a lack of prey.
They were roughly the same size as modern Grey Wolves, but had the strongest bite force of any known canine – powered by a 25 per cent larger jaw.
And now they have been brought back with some clever DNA tinkering.
Scientists combined genetic material from fossilised Dire Wolf remains with that of Grey Wolves.
Colossal CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm said in a statement: “Our team took DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies.”
The mixed DNA was transferred into donor egg cells, and the embryos put into a surrogate mother.
She birthed the three healthy pups in October 2024.
The growing youngsters are reported to be thriving on a more than 2,000-acre preserve at a secret location in the US.
The trio are the first specimens to roam the planet since the species disappeared around 13,000 years ago at the end of the most recent ice age.
But their diet is likely different to their ancestors, who hunted mainly sloths, bison and horses.
Dr Christopher Mason, a scientific adviser with Colossal, said: “The de-extinction of the dire wolf and an end-to-end system for de-extinction is transformative and heralds an entirely new era of human stewardship of life.
“The same technologies that created the dire wolf can directly help save a variety of other endangered animals as well.
“This is an extraordinary technological leap in genetic engineering efforts for both science and for conservation as well as preservation of life, and a wonderful example of the power of biotechnology to protect species, both extant and extinct.”
6
6
The Dire Wolf project is not the first to launch Colossal into the headlines.
Back in March, it sparked global excitement by creating a “woolly mouse”.
This was a rodent implanted with woolly mammoth DNA, which made it grow a thick, bushy coat.
Colossal said of the Dire Wolf project: “Together, this data provided more than 500x more coverage of the dire wolf genome than was available previously.”
Dr Beth Shapiro, Colossal’s Chief Science Officer, said: “Our novel approach to iteratively improve our ancient genome in the absence of a perfect reference sets a new standard for paleogenome reconstruction.”
However, some in the scientific community have spoken out to contest Colossal’s claims of de-extinction.
According to the New Scientist, the creatures are more like “gene-edited grey wolves that look a bit like dire wolves”.
That’s because the company’s classification is based on the philosophy that “if they look like this animal, then they are the animal”, in the words of Shapiro.
But the pups are not actually genetically identical to the ancient species.
6
