The Dire Wolf Returns After More Than 10,000 Years Of Being Extinc
On Monday, genetic engineering company Colossal Biosciences shared groundbreaking news. Their scientists have successfully brought back the dire wolf, a species that was once considered extinct.
The Dallas, Texas-based company has confirmed the birth of three dire wolf pups. The litter includes two males named Romulus and Remus and one female named Khaleesi.
The dire wolf was believed to have gone extinct during the Ice Age. This means it has been over 10,000 years since the species last roamed the Earth.
How Did This Happen?
As many TV fans know, the popular series Game of Thrones brought dire wolves into the spotlight, making them somewhat of a mascot of the show.
But outside of the fictional world, no one has actually seen the real species in person until now. So, how did scientists manage to bring back a creature that was extinct?
Colossal Biosciences used advanced genetic and cloning engineering to make it happen. Scientists began by analyzing the ancient wolves’ DNA recovered from fossilized remains.
They were able to use this information to create embryos, which were then implanted into surrogate animals closely related to the dire wolf, like the modern-day gray wolf.
“We’ve taken a gray wolf genome, a gray wolf cell. which is already genetically 99.5% identical to dire wolves because they’re very closely related,” Beth Shapiro, Colossal’s chief scientist, said in a statement to ABC News.
“And we’ve edited those cells at multiple places in its DNA sequence to contain the dire wolf version of the DNA.”
These newly born pups aren’t an exact replica of the dire wolf that existed all those years ago, but they are as close as science can get to recreating the species.
While the pups have the genetic makeup of a dire wolf, there are some differences due to the limitations of current technology. Still, these pups are an incredible step in the field of genetic engineering and de-extinction.
“I could not be more proud of the team,” Colossal CEO Ben Lamm said in a press release. “This massive milestone is the first of many coming examples demonstrating that our end-to-end de-extinction technology stack works. Our team took DNA from a 13,000 year old tooth and a 72,000 year old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies.
“It was once said, ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Today, our team gets to unveil some of the magic they are working on and its broader impact on conservation.”
According to Colossal, the three newborn wolves are currently being cared for in a 2,000-acre ecological preserve. It is certified by the American Humane Society and registered with the USDA.
However, the exact location of the preserve is kept a secret.
