Have you heard of the so-called direwolf, which went extinct over 10,000 years ago but gained fame through the TV series Game of Thrones? Well, it has been brought back to life! According to Time magazine, thanks to DNA extracted from ancient remains and embryos developed in dogs acting as surrogate mothers, three puppies have been born from three separate pregnancies between October 2024 and January 2025: two males, Romulus and Remus, and one female, Khaleesi, who now live in a protected and secretive area.
The achievement is credited to the American company Colossal Biosciences, which recently made headlines by also bringing the dream of resurrecting mammoths closer to reality with the birth of the first genetically modified woolly mice in a laboratory. The three puppies belong to the Aenocyon dirus species, commonly known as the dire wolf, which lived between 200,000 and 10,000 years ago in the Americas and Eastern Asia.
This lineage separated from other canids very early, about 5.7 million years ago, making it a close relative of the African jackal. They were the size of a large modern gray wolf, weighing up to 68 kilograms, but with larger and sharper teeth capable of hunting and bringing down large herbivores like bisons and horses. The researchers at Colossal Biosciences used DNA extracted from two samples: a 13,000-year-old tooth found in Ohio and a 72,000-year-old ear bone found in Idaho.
SOUND ON. You’re hearing the first howl of a dire wolf in over 10,000 years. Meet Romulus and Remus—the world’s first de-extinct animals, born on October 1, 2024.
The dire wolf has been extinct for over 10,000 years. These two wolves were brought back from extinction using… pic.twitter.com/wY4rdOVFRH
— Colossal Biosciences® (@colossal) April 7, 2025
Normally, cloning involves isolating a cell from the sample, extracting the nucleus containing all the DNA, and inserting it into an egg without its nucleus, from which the embryo can develop. In this case, however, as reported by Time, a different approach was chosen: 20 modifications on 14 genes of the common gray wolf were made, and then the modified genome was transferred into an egg. The result is the three puppies just a few months old, characterized by a white coat, stronger shoulders, larger teeth and jaws, more muscular legs, and a distinctive howl.
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