The US biotech company Colossal Biosciences has edited the genes of a common wolf, giving it traits of a dire wolf, a species that lived in North America during the late Pleistocene epoch.
This is reported by Time and Economic Times.
Scientists compared the DNA of a common wolf with the genes of a dire wolf. The material of the latter was taken from two samples: a 13 000-year-old tooth found in Ohio and a 72 000-year-old skull bone found in Idaho. This way, scientists understood what differences existed between the more massive ancestors of modern animals.
Courtesy Colossal Biosciences
The dire wolf was more massive than usual, had light fur, a wider head, larger teeth and jaws, stronger shoulders and more muscular paws. He also howled and howled in a special way. Specialists from Colossal Biosciences claim that they made only 20 changes in 14 genes to obtain an embryo of the extinct predator from the stem cells of an ordinary wolf.
The dire wolf gene responsible for the light coat color causes blindness in modern animals, so the color was changed using a gene that modern Arctic species have.
The embryos were implanted into surrogate mothers, domestic dogs. After 65 days of pregnancy, in October 2024, they gave birth to the males Romulus and Remus. And in January 2025, the first female Khaleesi was born, named after the heroine of the TV series "Game of Thrones" and the book series "A Song of Ice and Fire" by George R. R. Martin. The direwolves described in these works were invented by the author based on dire wolves.
Six-month-old Romulus and Remus have grown to 1.2 meters long and already weigh 36 kilograms. According to scientists, they will grow to 1.8 meters and 70 kilograms. The puppies behave the same as regular wolves and avoid people, even those who raised them.
Andrew Zuckerman / Courtesy Colossal Biosciences
Colossal Biosciences believes it has revived an extinct animal species for the first time. But because the company has not published its results in any peer-reviewed journal, other scientists are skeptical.
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