Biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences has resurrected the “world’s first successfully de-extincted animal” by creating three dire wolf pups using ancient DNA. The dire wolf species has been extinct for about 12,500 years.
The dire wolf species went extinct around 12,500 years ago. Now, scientists from biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences, based in Dallas, Texas, have created three dire wolf pups using ancient DNA, making the species the “world’s first successfully de-extincted animal.”
The scientists utilized the ancient DNA with cloning and gene-editing technology to alter the genes of a gray wolf, which is the closest living relative to the prehistoric dire wolf. The company announced a successful resurrection this week. What the scientists created is essentially a hybrid species that is very similar to what the dire wolf appeared to be.
The dire wolf was known to have been a top predator in North America. They were larger than their gray wolf relatives, and “had a slightly wider head, light thick fur, and stronger jaw,” Colossal said to CNN.
You may have seen headlines from other projects that Colossal is working on in recent years. Since 2021, the company has been working on resurrecting the woolly mammoth, dodo bird, and Tasmanian tiger, however, this is the first time they’ve publicized their data and work on dire wolves.
“This massive milestone is the first of many coming examples demonstrating that our end-to-end de-extinction technology stack works,” said Ben Lamm, Colossal’s cofounder and CEO.
“Our team took DNA from a 13,000 year old tooth and a 72,000 year old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies.”
The three pups that Colossal created are currently living on a 2,000-acre property at an undisclosed location that is enclosed in “zoo-grade” fencing that’s about 10-feet-tall. The pups are being protected and monitored by live camera feeds, drones, and security.
According to CNN, the facility is both certified by the American Humane Society, and registered with the US Department of Agriculture.
Colossal’s scientists said their process for creating the pups started with extracting ancient DNA from two dire wolf fossils. They used that DNA to create two high-quality sets of genetic information, known as genomes. Using those genomes, the team was able to compare to living organisms such as wolves and foxes. The comparisons were utilized to identify similarities in current living species and what we’ve known about the dire wolves’ appearance.
That information gave the scientists the tools they needed to alter gray wolf DNA and cells. They made 20 edits in 14 genes before cloning the most promising cell lines and then transferring them into donor eggs, CNN reported.
In a statement, Colossal said that “healthy developing embryos were then transferred into surrogates for interspecies gestation.” This process led to three successful pregnancies and births of two male dire wolf pups and one female pup.
Love Dalén, a professor in evolutionary genomics and adviser for Colossal, said that in order to achieve these births, the company created hybrid genomes to cut back on certain gray wolf DNA variants and replace them with dire wolf traits.
“There’s no secret that across the genome, this is 99.9% gray wolf. There is going to be an argument in the scientific community regarding how many genes need to be changed to make a dire wolf, but this is really a philosophical question.”
“It carries dire wolf genes, and these genes make it look more like a dire wolf than anything we’ve seen in the last 13,000 years, and that is very cool,” Dalén said.
“The way I see this is that they have resurrected the dire wolf phenotype (the observable traits of a species) and we know from the genome that they probably looked a bit like these puppies. To me, it’s a dire wolf in that sense,” he said.
Ben Lamm founded Colossal in 2021, and since then has raised around $435 million. The overarching goal of their recent research is to resurrect the woolly mammoth, which they believe they can do in 2028.
The company is also hoping that the technology they used to create the dire wolf pups can be used to benefit currently endangered species to help them repopulate. This week they stated that they were able to create two litters of cloned red wolves, the most critically endangered wolf species.
“Colossal have taken thoughtful precautions to screen against any unintended genetic consequences of their edits, eliminating risky edits known to be associated with poor outcomes,” said Christopher Preston, a professor of environmental philosophy.
“In states like Montana, we are currently having trouble keeping a healthy population of gray wolves on the land in the face of amped up political opposition. It is hard to imagine dire wolves ever being released and taking up an ecological role. So, I think it is important to ask what role the new animals will serve,” he stated.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
