Dire Wolves have captured the public imagination, with their striking appearance resembling the fictional dire wolves from 'Game of Thrones'.
Image: HBO Game of Thrones
A modern-day “Jurassic Park” scenario is making headlines this week after Time magazine unveiled its latest cover: a snow-white wolf described as the first “de-extincted” dire wolf.
The announcement came from Colossal Biosciences, a Texas-based biotech company known for its efforts to resurrect extinct animals like the woolly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger.
According to the company, it has successfully bred three pups—Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi—using ancient DNA and advanced genetic engineering to recreate the long-lost predator.
The dire wolf, made famous by “Game of Thrones”, was very real. It roamed North and South America more than 10,000 years ago during the last ice age. But scientists say what Colossal has created is not a true dire wolf.
The dire wolf, made famous by “Game of Thrones”, roamed North and South America more than 10,000 years ago during the last ice age.
Image: Time Magazine
Dr Nic Rawlence, a paleogeneticist from the University of Otago in New Zealand, told the BBC that the DNA recovered from dire wolf fossils is too damaged to clone.
“Ancient DNA is like if you put fresh DNA in a 500 degree oven overnight,” he explained. “It comes out fragmented—like shards and dust. You can reconstruct [it], but it’s not good enough to do anything else with.”
Instead, scientists at Colossal used synthetic biology to identify key genetic traits from dire wolf DNA, and then edited those segments into the genetic code of a grey wolf—its closest living relative.
The edited cells were cloned, and embryos implanted into domestic dog surrogates. All three pups were delivered by planned caesarean section.
“So what Colossal has produced is a grey wolf, but it has some dire wolf-like characteristics, like a larger skull and white fur,” said Dr Rawlence. “It’s a hybrid.”
Zoologist Philip Seddon, also from Otago University, agreed. “They’re genetically modified grey wolves,” he said.
Dr Beth Shapiro, a biologist with Colossal Biosciences, defended the project. “A grey wolf is the closest living relative of a dire wolf—they’re genetically really similar—so we targeted DNA sequences that lead to dire wolf traits and then edited grey wolf cells... then we cloned those cells and created our dire wolves,” she said.
However, experts stress that dire wolves are far more distantly related to grey wolves than people may assume.
“Dire wolves diverged from grey wolves anywhere between 2.5 to six million years ago,” said Dr Rawlence.
“They’re actually in a completely different genus. Colossal compared the genomes of the dire wolf and the grey wolf, and from about 19,000 genes, they determined that 20 changes in 14 genes gave them a dire wolf.”
Colossal is keeping the three pups at a secret location on a private 2,000-acre facility in the northern United States.
The animals have captured the public imagination, with their striking appearance resembling the fictional dire wolves from television. But experts warn that while the technology is impressive, the science of “de-extinction” should not be misunderstood.
“Extinction is still forever,” said Dr Rawlence. “If we don’t have extinction, how are we going to learn from our mistakes?”
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