Dire Wolves Back From Extinction? The Danger of Studies Made Headlines

Amidst the onslaught of breaking headlines about current affairs throughout the world, 2 weeks ago talk of de-extinction once again entered into public consciousness through three wolf pups: Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi. These pups are, according to the biotech company Colossal Bioscience, dire wolves, an extinct species native to the Americas from the Holocene period(125,000-10,000 years ago). Outlets were quick to run headlines such as "Dire Wolves Resurrected, the End of Endangered Species!" but upon reading the article it often seen that that's not exactly the case. 

Colossal's wolves are not Dire Wolves, they are grey wolves with edited genomes. The company states that by simply editing 14 loci, the pups will grow to be as dire wolves had been, but a simple genome edit does not simply transform a species into another. Furthermore, the company's accompanying paper(which is in preprint/not reviewed as of 4/22/2025) On the ancestry and evolution of the extinct dire wolf concerns itself more with canine evolutionary history than it does with the three pups that have been all over the news. Despite this, many have began to regard the species as officially "de-extinct" and that scientists now have the ability to do the same with other species. This misrepresentation risks damaging the view of scientific ability in the eyes of the layman, as if we can de-extinct a species so easily, why not wooly mammoths or doodoos? If we can simply revive species, what need is there for environmental protections? 

Sources: 

https://slate.com/technology/2025/04/dire-wolf-colossal-de-extinct-conservation-science-research-paper.html

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.09.647074v1

 

They’re here. They’re howling. But, are they resurrected dire wolves?

    A once extinct animal is now back after 10,000-13,000 years. New wolf pups, named Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi are Dire Wolf pups who are nuzzling, nipping, and chasing. As they are young, they are pretty big for their age measuring about 4 feet long and around 80 pounds. In their adult years they can grow to be 6 feet and 150 pounds. Long ago the Dire Wolves roamed an American range and also far south in Venezuela and up north in Canada. A company named Colossal Biosciences saw an opportunity and went for it. They relied on deft genetic engineering and with the preserved DNA of the wolves they deciphered the dire wolf genome, and the scientists were able to rewrite the genetic code of a gray wolf. They matched it to the once extinct wolf, and lastly they used a domestic dog as a surrogate. On their de-extinction wish list the scientists say they also want to bring back "the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger."

    The new pups are very cute, and in my opinion these new findings and the work these scientists are doing is remarkable and fascinating. With these findings and the new understanding of all this, we shall see what other new discoveries and what other extinct animals they'll bring back. I find it amazing that they used the dire wolf preserved DNA and rewrote the genetic code from a gray wolf to produce the once extinct wolf species. 

Sources:

https://time.com/7274542/colossal-dire-wolf/

https://www.highlandernews.org/93315/the-dire-wolf-returns/

Dire Wolves are Distantly Related Dire Canines ?

 

    Most people know of the dire wolf, the megafauna canine that hunted bison, competed against saber tooth cats for resources and eventually dying out at the end of the last ice age. Others might know dire wolves as the symbol of the Stark Family from A Song of Ice and Fire or Game of Thrones. Hulking massive wolves that could be warged to see from their eyes or attack others. Those interpretations of dire wolves are overhyping the dire wolf when in reality, it could have been a coyote on steroids. 

In a Science Magazine article, dire wolves are only now recently given their own genetic line in the canid family. Far away from the other branches such as foxes, jackals, wolves and coyotes. In fact the La Brea Tar Pits, the resting places of hundreds of dire wolves, mitochondrial DNA was taken and compared to several living canid species in the United States. The results were striking, as the grey wolf diverges from the dire wolf very early on in genetics.There was also no hybridization between grey wolves and dire wolves, meaning that their DNA was incompatible .Coyotes and grey wolves regularly hybridize, only adding to the suspicion that the dire wolf was another beast entirely, genetically speaking. However, the dire wolf DNA genome is incomplete, thus leaving room for genes that do tied them to the grey wolf. 

Since dire wolves were specialized in hunting megafauna, it is a widely believed theory that they died out when their prey also died out due to climate change and human competition.Their phenotype was also  .Unable to adapt, dire wolves became another extinct species, while smaller canids such as coyotes and grey wolves flourished.

If that genome of the dire wolf is ever completed, It would change how the canines in the United States came to be. Also their recreation of their looks would also drastically change.