Truth behind return of dire wolf as company claims it's brought animal back from extinction after 10,000 years

Here is how a genetic engineering company were able to resurrect the ancient dire wolf, around 10,000 years after the breed was believed to have become extinct.

Yesterday (7 April), Colossal Biosciences confirmed the successful birth of three rather adorable dire wolf puppies, born between October 2024 and January 2025, who are named Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi.

The news swiftly went viral, capturing the attention of both Game of Thrones fans and igniting hopes that other extinct species such as the woolly mammoth, dodo and white rhino could be brought back from the dead.

However scientists have since weighed in on whether or not the pups created by Colossal Biosciences could actually be considered genuine dire wolves.

What are dire wolves — and when did the breed become extinct?

Dire wolves are believed to have lived on the American continent during a period of our planet's ancient history known as the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene epochs.

The species are believed to have lived for around 125,000–10,000 years ago. It's not fully known why they became extinct, however researches put forward that a failure to adapt to hunt new prey as their original prey sources disappeared as the leading theory.

How have Colossal Biosciences created the dire wolf pups?

Unlike traditional cloning, first seen with Dolly the Sheep and replicated numerous times over the years, creating the three dire wolf pups was more complicated.

The team at Colossal Biosciences has said Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi were created through a combination of cloning and gene-editing samples of ancient dire wolf DNA.

According to a statement shared on the company's X account, the wolves were 'brought back from extinction using genetic edits derived from a complete dire wolf genome, meticulously reconstructed by Colossal from ancient DNA found in fossils dating back 11,500 and 72,000 years'.

"Our team took DNA from a 13,000 year old tooth and a 72,000 year old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies,” said Colossal CEO Ben Lamm added.

Are the animals really dire wolves?

Since the announcement by Colossal Biosciences, scientists and genetic experts have weighed in on whether or not it would be accurate to say that the species has been brought back from extinction.

New Scientist has argued the pups are not exact genetic matches for the extinct species and are instead a modified version of the existing grey wolf.

The outlet explained Colossal Biosciences had made 20 edits to the grey wolf genome, 15 of which changed the creature's 'size, musculature and ear shape' while a further five altered the colour of their fur.

However this doesn't account for millions of 'base-pairs of differences' between the two species.

According to a report from Time, the wolves were created by examining genomes from dire wolf fossils and looking for differences between the dire wolf and its closest living relative.

Edits were then made to the gene sequence in an extracted grey wolf nuclei, such as making sure the dire wolf would have their characteristic light coats, before being placed back in the eggs and left to develop. Once the eggs had become embryos, they were placed into the womb of surrogate dogs.

So are Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi the exact descendants of dire wolves?

Depends on who you ask, as Colossal's Beth Shapiro argued to New Scientist: "We are using the morphological species concept and saying, if they look like this animal, then they are the animal."