OMG it happened! The Direwolf is back. Two beautiful and healthy white Direwolves called Reamus and Romulus were born in October 2024 after being De-Extincted by Colossal Biosciences who are the most exciting company on the forefront of conservation and the restoration of animals that us humans have destroyed. The two boys are currently living at a secret location in a huge and wild 20 acre enclosure in North America under the supervision of vets and staff. They are growing at a huge rate and have wonderful howls just like the grey wolf. We will learn so much about this species as well as now have groundbreaking science to restore critically endangered wildlife populations such as the Red Wolf and The Northern White Rhino as well as be able to edit out hereditary diseases that are killing huge swathes of animal populations. Anneka Svenska and Animal Watch
It takes surprisingly few genetic changes to spell the difference between a living species and an extinct one. Like other canids, a wolf has about 19,000 genes. (Humans and mice have about 30,000.) Creating the dire wolves called for making just 20 edits in 14 genes in the common gray wolf, but those tweaks gave rise to a host of differences, including Romulus’ and Remus’ white coat, larger size, more powerful shoulders, wider head, larger teeth and jaws, more-muscular legs, and characteristic vocalizations, especially howling and whining.
I am seeing this splashed all over my screen in the last few minutes.
A lot of hype certainly but there may be something to it.
Update April 8/25
No, those wolves in the news yesterday are NOT dire wolves. To be clear those are Gray Wolves with just a few genes modified based on Dire Wolf DNA through CRISPR.
The genus Aenocyon has a deep evolutionary history and it separated from the lineage that includes Jackals. Dholes, Coyotes and Wolves about 5 million years ago. Aenocyon evolved separately likely in The Americas. To claim that those animals presented in the news yesterday are Dire Wolves is really disingenuous and it is just spreading misinformation. Apart from that, it creates the dangerous idea that we can rely on this method of “resurrecting” extinct species instead of making efforts to preserve the animals and plants we have left. Not to mention that introducing an animal that is NOT a Dire Wolf or a normal Gray Wolf in the environment could/will have all kinds of unintended consequences that I do not think have been properly explored yet.Also these news have been presented without a paper! They said the paper is coming but every time you see news like these published before the paper is a major red flag! So, to reiterate: NO THOSE WHITE WOLVES PRESENTED YESTERDAY ARE NOT DIRE WOLVES. They are at best just transgenic Gray Wolves.
Here is a reconstruction I did of Aenocyon for my licensing libraries and some sketches I did for a commission I am currently working on. Gabriel Ugueto Art
The naysayers are out now saying it is a lot of hype. I tend to agree when only 20 some gray wolf genes were changed.
Amen to that!
That is the biological equivalent to hammering my Toyota Corolla 2006 into the shape of a Ferrari Dino. Would it look like a Ferrari Dino? would it handle like a Ferrari Dino? Every single piece of factual genetic evidence we have tell us that dire wolves are very divergent from wolves (the fact they share a name is not exactly meaningful, we gave them the name), and that just editing a few genes is not capturing the actual diversity between wolves and dire wolves. It is a good marketing ply for a whole load of bullshit, but it not serious in bringing dire wolves back from the dead.
I tend to agree when only 20 some gray wolf genes were changed.