You’ve probably read in the news here and there that there are efforts to bring back the mammoth, especially last month when the woolly mice were created as a stepping stone to the woolly mammoth. But pulling ahead of the extinct cousins elephants are instead dire wolves, a fantasy staple often depicted as much larger than the average grey wolf. In real life, they are perhaps only slightly larger, but while they died out about 12,500 years ago, Dallas-based biotech company Colossal Biosciences claimed to have brought it back to life.
Scientists at the company have created three dire wolves by editing the genes of grey wolves based on dire wolf DNA, and cloning the most promising ones. These are “then transferred into surrogates for interspecies gestation”, which CNN reports are large, mixed-breed domestic dogs. The result is three specimens of what the company claims to be the first de-extinct species. Two males were born on 1 October 2024, while a female was born on 30 January 2025.
At base, the company says that grey wolves are 99.5% genetically identical to dire wolves, and the three de-extincted specimens are 99.9% genetically similar. The report quotes Love Dalén, a professor in evolutionary genomics based at the Centre for Palaeogenetics at Stockholm University, and an adviser to Colossal, as saying “there is going to be an argument in the scientific community regarding how many genes need to be changed to make a direwolf, but this is really a philosophical question”.
While it’s a great scientific achievement for those who are invested in the endeavour, it’s unclear what role these animals will serve. According to the report, the company has said that its ultimate goal in creating genetically engineered mammoths, and indeed the dire wolves, are so that they will all have a role to play in the ecosystem.
(Source: Business Wire, CNN, The Guardian)
