Science has made dire wolves from Game of Thrones ‘de-extinct’, can it bring back the Tassie tiger and prehistoric Australian species?

The company that created puppies from extinct dire wolf fossils says it can use the same science to resurrect the Tasmanian tiger — and more. But a Melbourne bioethicist warns we must think very carefully before “the next experiment”.

A leading Melbourne bioethicist has issued a chilling warning over the scientific advancements that may enable extinct species to be resurrected, saying “it has the potential for unforeseen side effects” and we need to think very carefully “about the next experiment that comes down the line”.

It comes as Colossal Biosciences reported this week it had successfully “de-extincted” the dire wolf and created three puppies through DNA from ancient fossils and genes from their closest living relative, the grey wolf.

The company — working with Melbourne University researchers and backed by Australia’s famous Hemsworth brothers — has plans to use the same technology to bring back the extinct Tasmanian tiger (Thylacine).

Dire wolves — made famous in the hit series Game of Thrones — disappeared nearly 13,000 years ago.

But Swinburne’s Dr Evie Kendal said a famous line from the film Jurassic Park by Jeff Goldblum’s character was worth remembering: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

A Tasmanian tiger in a Hobart zoo, before the species went extinct.

In October last year a team, headed by Melbourne University scientist Andrew Pask, said a reborn thylacine “100 per cent” could be recreated, possibly within three years and with a likely full return to the wild within a decade.

Its project — funded and run by Colossal — had achieved a major breakthrough with researchers creating a full genome of the marsupial through DNA from remaining specimens of the animal, scientists said.

“The Tassie tiger’s extinction had a devastating effect on our ecosystem and we are thrilled to support the revolutionary conservation efforts that are being made by Dr Pask and the entire Colossal team,” Aussie movie star Chris Hemsworth, who plays the God of Thunder Thor in the Marvel movies, said a couple of years earlier.

Professor Andrew Pask holds a skull of a Tasmanian tiger and a test tube containing DNA. Picture: David Caird

Chris Hemsworth as Thor.

Many other species that at one point in history roamed Australia have also gone extinct, from worms, rats and frogs to the rustic numbat, Stilton’s thunder bird — perhaps the largest, tallest and heaviest bird that ever existed — of course dinosaurs, and the enormous “four-footed, slow-moving, plant-eating” diprotodon, which looked something like a wombat crossed with a koala, but the size of a rhinoceros.

Fossils of the diprotodon, the “largest marsupial that’s ever existed”, were found half buried in the soil of a large riverbank 300 kilometres southwest of Katherine in the Northern Territory.

The prehistoric fossils were nicknamed Shirley by scientists, and dated at between 112,000 and 123,000 years-old.

But with the DNA available, could and should Shirley’s remains be used to bring diprotodons back from the dead?

It’s a long bow from extinct tigers and wolves, but part of the question bioethicists are asking when it comes to the resurrection of species, that science can now enable.

Fossils from a diprotodon were found near Katherine.

There are diprotodon fossils in Australian museums. Picture: Supplied

The dire wolf pups, named Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi, were created using DNA from a 13,000 year-old tooth and a 72,000 year-old skull, Colossal CEO Ben Lamm said.

High-quality cell lines using somatic cell nuclear transfer were placed into donor egg cells, and transferred to a surrogate dog mum, who gave birth in January.

Dire wolves became well known through HBO’s Game of Thrones, with dogs designed to look like the ancient and extinct species featured in the series.

The dire wolf — a species that disappeared 13,000 years ago and was made famous in Game of Thrones — has been “de-extincted” by science.

Two of the three Colossal Biosciences pups that were genetically engineered with similarities to the extinct dire wolf. Picture: Colossal Biosciences via AP

Nymeria the dire wolf in the hit series Game of Thrones. Picture: Supplied

Dr Kendal said there had been scepticism and backlash over Colossal’s dire wolf de-extinction claims.

Some of the criticism included claims that they “didn’t resurrect anything, just modified existing wolves to have similar phenotype to the extinct dire wolf”.

Dr Kendal said while Colossal insisted the experiment was conducted for ecological reasons, a lot of the public outcry focused on the ethics of the situation, including concerns about the wellbeing of the animal who carried the pregnancy involving the modified embryos.

There had been “countless” Jurassic Park references in the media and online commentary in relation to the dire wolf de-extinction, she said.

A scene from the film Jurassic Park III.

Actor Jeff Goldblum in a scene from 'The Lost World – Jurassic Park'.

“Right now is our opportunity to do this thinking, if not about Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi, then about the next experiment that comes down the line,” Dr Kendal said.

“On the one hand, de-extinction may be considered an extension of existing species conservation projects, but on the other it has the potential for unforeseen side effects that could harm other animals and the environment.”

Colossal on Thursday night said based on the fossil remains, dire wolves were as large or larger than the very largest modern grey wolves and also similar in appearance but dire wolves had stronger jaw muscles for a more powerful bite and larger baculum bones (a reproductive feature), suggesting different mating behaviors.

“Using new techniques to analyse ancient DNA, Colossal solved longstanding questions about these fascinating extinct carnivores that roamed the continent until about 13,000 years ago.

“Led by scientists from Colossal Biosciences and Form Bio, and including many of the same authors of the original 2021 dire wolf study published in (the esteemed science journal) Nature, the study not only illuminates the evolutionary history of dire wolves but also provides a roadmap for studying other extinct species,” it said in a statement.

“In our analyses of the dire wolf genomes, we identified positively selected genes related to body size, jaw strength, and reproductive biology – features that probably helped dire wolves specialise as hunters of large Ice Age mammals or that may explain why dire wolves did not further hybridise with later wolf-like canids that coexisted in North America towards the end of the Ice Age.”

It said dire wolves were not simply an ancient version of today’s grey wolves but a distinct lineage that diverged before the split of African jackals and other wolf-like canids, like coyotes and grey wolves.