Dire Wolves' De-extinction |
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10 April 2025 - Košice
Today I learned that a company in Texas has successfully brought back an extinct mammal, the dire wolf. I'm not sure when I first heard about dire wolves, as I've been interested in extinct megafauna for a long time. The world was introduced to them via the Game of Thrones series. And somehow dire wolves became de-extinct before George R. R. Martin has released Winds of Winter (spoiler alert: he never will). Back in 2019 I got to fulfill a lifetime dream and visit the La Brea Tar Pits on a trip to Los Angeles and see their massive collection of dire wolf skulls. La Brea is unique in that it caught way more predators that other animals and sealed them in tar until we came along to dig them up. Interestingly, these were not the bones that Colossal Biosciences sampled for dire wolf DNA. Critics claim that the puppies are not dire wolves, but genetically modified grey wolves. And they are. I don't think that takes away from the de-extinction claim though. And the company is also working on bringing back the wooly mammoth which would be even cooler, although successfully implanting an embryo in an elephant will be a much bigger challenge than in a wolf. It would be cool if this research leads to Jurassic Park one day, but I'd be happy for a Pleistocene Park. I also imagine people will be genetically modifying their children with the technology long before we get around to creating dinosaurs.
