Biotech company Colossal Biosciences said it has brought back the dire wolf, an animal that went extinct 10,000 years ago, through its de-extinction process.
tl;dr is that it’s basically just a gray wolf with 14 edited genes, most of which are from natural gray wolf populations rather than dire wolf genomes. The result is a gray wolf that’s visually similar to a dire wolf, not a dire wolf.
Yeah I was questioning it myself because dire wolves have a kinda different skull morphology compared to modern wolves. They’re also quite a bit larger.
Here’s a better article that isn’t as uncritically sensationalist.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/de-extinction-company-announces-that-the-dire-wolf-is-back/
tl;dr is that it’s basically just a gray wolf with 14 edited genes, most of which are from natural gray wolf populations rather than dire wolf genomes. The result is a gray wolf that’s visually similar to a dire wolf, not a dire wolf.
Visually similar to a GoT dire wolf. IIRC, actual Aenocyon Dirus probably didn’t have a white coat.
Yeah I was questioning it myself because dire wolves have a kinda different skull morphology compared to modern wolves. They’re also quite a bit larger.
It’s a wolf. But dire.
We gave a wolf diabetes which is pretty dire.