Featured Image Credit: Colossal Biosciences
Scientists have resurrected a wolf species that's been extinct for over 10,000 years.
A US biotech company called Colossal Biosciences announced that it has successfully welcomed three modern dire wolf pups into the world.
Using cloning and gene-editing techniques, the Texas-based team worked with ancient DNA from two dire wolf samples to facilitate the birth of the litter.
If these pups look a little familiar, it's because the once-eradicated species was made famous on HBO's hit TV show Game of Thrones.
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The three healthy pups include two six-month-old males named Romulus and Remus and a three-month-old female named Khaleesi (how fitting!). While the team restored the species back in October 2024, this is the first time the pups have been seen by the public.
“I could not be more proud of the team. This massive milestone is the first of many coming examples demonstrating that our end-to-end de-extinction technology stack works,” said Colossal CEO Ben Lamm.
Describing the process, Lamm added: “Our team took DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies."
Researchers at Colossal took blood cells from a living grey wolf - the dire wolf’s closest living relative - and genetically modified them in 20 different areas.
This edited DNA was then inserted into egg cells from a domestic dog before the embryos were implanted into surrogate mothers. The result was the successful birth of three healthy pups.
“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,” Lamm commented.
Colossal’s chief science officer Dr. Beth Shapiro explained that the team had to get creative with the ancient DNA since they didn’t have a complete reference genome. “Our novel approach to iteratively improve our ancient genome in the absence of a perfect reference sets a new standard for paleogenome reconstruction," she said.
“Together with improved approaches to recover ancient DNA, these computational advances allowed us to resolve the evolutionary history of dire wolves and establish the genomic foundation for de-extinction – specifically for selecting with confidence dire wolf-specific genetic variants that establish our targets for gene editing.”
Dire wolves are much larger than grey wolves and possess distinctive traits such as light, thick fur and muscular jaws.
According to Colossal, these animals will live out their lives in a secure, closely monitored ecological preserve, certified by the American Humane Society and overseen by the US Department of Agriculture.
Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin, who's also an investor and cultural advisor for Colossal, shared: “Many people view dire wolves as mythical creatures that only exist in a fantasy world, but in reality, they have a rich history of contributing to the American ecosystem.”
The dire wolf is well-known in fantasy scenes like Dungeons & Dragons and video games like World of Warcraft. “I get the luxury to write about magic, but Ben and Colossal have created magic by bringing these majestic beasts back to our world,” he continued.
