Scientists revive dire wolf species from in world’s first known ‘de-extinction’
Scientists have made a remarkable breakthrough that could be the first step to bring back some species that have been wiped off the Earth.
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The dire wolf — a species that disappeared 13,000 years ago and was made famous by the beloved HBO series Game of Thrones — is making a comeback, thanks to the first-ever so-called “de-extinction.”
Three dire wolf pups — aptly named Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi — were successfully born using DNA from ancient dire wolf fossils and genes from their closest living relative, the grey wolf.
The extraordinary results were revealed Monday by Colossal Biosciences, the same Texas-based genetic engineering company that created the adorable colossal woolly mouse.
“Our team took DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies,” said Colossal CEO Ben Lamm. “It was once said, ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Today, our team gets to unveil some of the magic they are working on and its broader impact on conservation.”
To create the painfully cute pups, Colossal cloned high-quality cell lines using somatic cell nuclear transfer into donor egg cells, and transferred them to a surrogate dog mum, who gave birth in January, according to the statement.
The ancient DNA was taken from a tooth fossil found in Ohio that is around 13,000 years old and an inner ear bone from Idaho, about 72,000 years old.
The two six-month-old male wolves, Romulus and Remus, and female pup Khaleesi now reside in a 800 hectare “secure expansive ecological preserve” with 10 full-time staff to give them around-the-clock care, Colossal said.
Dire wolves have appeared in HBO’s Game of Thrones and George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series which the TV show is based on, A Song of Ice and Fire.
In the show, the wolves are the sigil, or mascot, of House Stark.
Khaleesi is also named after the character, Daenerys Targaryen, played by Emilia Clarke in the series.
Despite their fictional significance, dire wolves were real-world predators that lurked across North America with mastodons and saber tooth tigers during the Ice Age. They hunted horses, bison and possibly mammoths, palaeontologist Julie Meachen told the New York Times.
After many of those prey became extinct due to human hunters, the dire wolf went extinct, and the grey wolf filled the “ecological void,” Meachen said.
Dire wolves are 25 per cent larger than their grey wolf counterparts, with more muscular jaws and shoulders, biologists say.
Lamm and George Church, a Harvard Medical School biologist, founded the now $10 billion private company with the goal of bringing back the woolly mammoth, Bloomberg reported.
The company also has its eyes set on reviving the Tasmanian tiger, the dodo, and successfully genetically engineered the woolly mouse last month, which shares similar curly-haired features with woolly mammoths.
“The de-extinction of the dire wolf and an end-to-end system for de-extinction is transformative and heralds an entirely new era of human stewardship of life,” Dr Christopher Mason, a scientific adviser and member of the board of observers for Colossal, said in the statement.
“This is an extraordinary technological leap in genetic engineering efforts for both science and for conservation as well as preservation of life, and a wonderful example of the power of biotechnology to protect species, both extant and extinct,” Mason said.
This story first appeared in the New York Post and was republished with permission.
Originally published as Scientists revive dire wolf species from in world’s first known ‘de-extinction’
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