The dire wolf is no longer extinct. Meet the world’s first de-extinct animals. The science of de-extinction is to analyze the frozen DNA of extinct animals and then genetically engineer a similar animal to have the desired traits of the extinct version.
They took Grey wolves and changed DNA so the child wolves would have the traits of Dire Wolves.
Colossal Biosciences has brought back the legendary dire wolf after more than 10,000 years.
In this video, follow Romulus and Remus, born on October 1, 2024—the first animals in history to be brought back from extinction. Watch them take their first steps, hear their first howls, and see a ton of highlights from their first five months of life in a brand-new world.
You’ll also meet Khaleesi—a little younger, but the very first female dire wolf brought back from extinction.
The big prize for de-extinction will be the Woolly Mammoth. The woolly mammoth will be able to walk around the Tundra of Canada and Russia and pack the dirt and ice to slow any loss of the polar ice caps.
They could actually reverse the loss of the ice cap to get a controlled ice age.
Mammoths could lower the ground temperature by eight degrees. There is twice as much CO2 in the Tundra as there is in the atmosphere at this time. Keeping CO2 locked in the permafrost is huge for climate change. It could be possible to store more CO2.
How it Works (Hypothetically):
Mammoths, like other large grazers, would help maintain the grasslands by trampling vegetation and preventing the growth of trees, which would help to keep the permafrost frozen.
Mammoths could also help compact snow, which acts as an insulator, further preventing the permafrost from thawing.
Grasslands are known to store more carbon in their roots than forests, so restoring the mammoth steppe could help sequester carbon.
The Arctic permafrost, home to the woolly mammoth, contains an estimated 1.4 trillion tons of carbon, more than double the amount currently in the atmosphere, and thawing permafrost could release this carbon as methane and CO2, contributing to climate change
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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They didn’t bring back Dire Wolves.
They took samples of Dire Wolf and put genes it into a grey wolf DNA.
That makes this a hybrid; it’s not a clone of a dire wolf or its lineage, in any sense.
In Jurassic Park, they did the same basic thing. What you had were effectively dinosaurs, but for each species, I don’t think you could definitively call it A, B or C, but a hybrid.
The fact that they were going on about phenotype and trying to make the thing LOOK like a direwolf, vs its actual genome matching a dire wolf, tells me everything.
Hmmm, I was more worried about the methane under the permafrost than CO2
Maybe we could prioritize the tasty ones? Passenger pigeons? Dodos?
Rather than the ones liable to eat us?
Have you ever, like, even seen the plot of a sci-fi movie? This is how you’ve got to do it.
This whole claim of “bringing back the species” seems quite far from the truth. Why does this get attention? We’ve been gene editing for a long time now. Glowing bunnies anyone?
I came to the same conclusion.
This isn’t a clone but a hybrid specifically tailored to *look* like a dire wolf
From GROK AI: “Recent claims (as of April 2025) about “revived” Dire Wolf pups, such as those from Colossal Biosciences, involve genetically modified gray wolves (Canis lupus) with specific genes edited to mimic Dire Wolf traits (e.g., size, fur color). These pups are not pure-bred Dire Wolves; they are primarily gray wolves with a small percentage of their genome (about 0.074%, or 14 out of 19,000 genes) altered to reflect Dire Wolf characteristics. No actual Dire Wolf DNA is directly incorporated, as surviving samples are too degraded for such use. Thus, they don’t qualify as a “pure breed” of Dire Wolves—they’re a hybrid approximation at best.”
For everyone else commenting that these are genetically modified Gray wolves. This is what I wrote in the article. All the articles published on this talk about the Dire Wolves like genetic creation.
I am clear that these are not pure bred Dire Wolves.
I am super excited by these developments. However, keeping in mind that biology, geology & ecology relate in nuanced, dynamic ways, a recent Ars Technica article throws some cold (warm?) water on the permafrost carbon sequestration proposal. I think, when new interventions are implemented, our best strategy is to track the outcome and make the right conclusions based on the resulting data. Easier said than done in the field of carbon-emission tracking. https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/editorial-mammoth-de-extinction-is-bad-conservation/
Dire wolves were big like Akita and Great Danes. I guess there really is no hope to expect to be able to clone permafrosted mammals – that mush will apparently not provide viable cell nuclei. So, we’re left with the artistry of the gene editors, not terribly unlike Jurassic Park, but not quite there either. Still, bravo! And if you can grow hair on an Asian Elephant or Sumatran Rhinoceros, then let them loose in Canada and Russia to forage with the moose. Good science, although the Ben Lamm guy strikes me as vain based on his appearance. Maybe that is necessary at the executive level – I trust the autistic engineer type over the silver-tongued CEO with wavy locks.
Start with a Sumatran Rhino breeding program and put them in the glades of LA.
“Countdown to Extinction” Megadeth, 1992.