The dire wolf has returned from the dead. A Dallas company ‘de-extincted’ them

Colossal Biosciences has announced that it has brought the dire wolf back from extinction. The Dallas-based “de-extinction” company announced the rebirth the once extinct dire wolf.

The dire wolf, largely assumed to be a legendary creature made famous from the HBO hit series Game of Thrones, was an American canid that had previously been extinct for over 12,500 years. I’ve done an interview with the company leaders, who were really planning to make the announcement tomorrow until The New Yorker decided to break the news embargo. I’ll run that interview later.

The successful birth of three dire wolves is a revolutionary milestone of scientific progress that illustrates another leap forward in Colossal’s de-extinction technologies and is a critical step on the pathway to the de-extinction of other target species, the company said. Yep, it’s like the plot of Jurassic Park.

Additionally, Colossal has birthed two litters of cloned red wolves, the most critically endangered wolf in the world, using a new approach to non-invasive blood cloning. The birth of red wolves provides further evidence of the link between de-extinction efforts and the company’s growing capacity to support conservation efforts globally through de-extinction technology innovation.

This news comes on the heels of the recent announcement of the Colossal woolly mouse, which previously held the record for unique germline edits in an animal with eight precision edits.

With the dire wolves, Colossal has made 20 unique precision germline edits including 15 edits from the ancient gene variants that have not existed in over 12,000 years, setting a new bar for precision germline editing in any animal.