Scientists are now claiming that they can bring back extinct animals, which is historically a great idea that never goes wrong. On Monday, Colossal Biosciences, which bills itself as “the world’s only de-extinction company,” announced that it had successfully resurrected the dire wolf. The previously extinct animal that served as the inspiration for the Game of Thrones hounds of the same name had not walked the Earth for more than 12,000 years, and now, according to Colossal, there are three of them. One of the trio appeared on the cover of Time this week, sparking a lot of discussion.
In a press release, Colossal said that there are two adolescent male dire wolves, Romulus and Remus, and one female puppy, Khaleesi. The wolves came to being through ancient DNA found in dire-wolf fossils and gene editing. The genes of the dire wolf’s closest living relative, the gray wolf, were edited to include gene variants specific to the formerly extinct animal. I will say what we’re all thinking: This is some Jurassic Park nonsense.
The Michael Crichton vibes extend beyond just the rebirth of the dire wolves. They’re also living on their own special plot of land, where things are apparently going great … for now. The wolves are currently “thriving” on more than 2,000 acres of land in an “expansive ecological preserve,” location not disclosed. The preserve is surrounded with ten-foot-tall “zoo-grade” fencing, which, frankly, does not seem high enough.
We might be in luck, though. It seems that there are some scientists who aren’t buying what Colossal is selling. Speaking to the BBC, two zoologists said that the animal gracing the cover of Time is actually just a gray wolf with some tweaks.
“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. Nic Rawlence of Otago University in New Zealand. “It’s a hybrid.” Dr. Rawlence’s colleague at the university, Philip Seddon, echoed the sentiment in blunt terms, saying that the dire wolves produced by Colossal are just “genetically modified grey wolves.”
A biologist at Colossal, Dr. Beth Shapiro, stood by her company’s claims. “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,” she told BBC, “then we cloned those cells and created our dire wolves.”
That’s not good enough for Dr. Rawlence, whose issues with the project start at the idea that the ancient DNA of a dire wolf would be of any use at all. “Ancient DNA is like if you put fresh DNA in a 500 degree oven overnight,” he said. “You can reconstruct [it], but it’s not good enough to do anything else with.”
He also noted that dire wolves are “in a completely different genus to grey wolves.” He brought the numbers to back it up. “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,” he said. You can almost hear him scoffing.
Drama! There’s no way Colossal is going to back down from its claim that it can “de-extinct” entire species, but it’s also comforting to know that that’s not totally what it’s doing. Now we can all relax and look forward to the day the world’s leading genetic scientists strap a new nose onto a pigeon and call it a dodo bird.
