Colossal Unveils First De-Extinct Dire Wolf Pups

Dire wolves, which vanished about 12,500 years ago, have now returned thanks to advances in genetic engineering — marking what scientists are calling the world’s first true de-extinction. Researchers at Colossal Biosciences, a biotech company focused on conservation and famous for its efforts to revive the woolly mammoth, announced the successful birth of three dire wolf pups (Aenocyon dirus). By reconstructing the ancient predator’s genome from preserved DNA, the team isolated gene variants that were exclusive to dire wolves and not found in their modern relatives. Using this data, scientists modified the DNA of present-day gray wolves (Canis lupus) to include those unique genetic traits.

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They inserted the edited DNA into egg cells from gray wolves that had been stripped of their original nuclei, cultivated them in a lab, and implanted the embryos into surrogate dogs, according to TIME. This led to the birth of three snowy white pups—named Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi—whose appearance evokes Ghost, the iconic dire wolf companion of Jon Snow from HBO’s Game of Thrones. “Our team took DNA from a 13,000 year old tooth and a 72,000 year old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies,” Colossal CEO Ben Lamm said in a statement. “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.”

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Colossal Uses Cloning Tech to Recreate Dire Wolves from Fossil DNA

To produce a perfect clone with this method, scientists remove a single cell from the cloning subject and extract its genetic material from the nucleus. They then insert this genetic information into the egg of a donor animal from the same species after removing the egg’s original nucleus. Scientists transfer the modified egg, now containing all the genetic information needed to recreate the cloning subject, to a surrogate, who then carries it to term. However, because dire wolves went extinct at the end of the last ice age, Colossal had to approximate their own dire wolf cells by piecing together clues from the fossil record.

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To reconstruct the animal’s genome, they used genetic samples from dire wolf fossils and compared these to the genomes of their living relatives, including wolves, jackals and foxes. They selected gray wolves to be the egg donors, as these animals are the closest living cousins to dire wolves.  From 45 embryos, only two successfully implanted into domestic dog surrogates. Romulus and Remus were born on October 1, 2024, followed by Khaleesi three months later. Colossal released videos showing the pups’ early steps and howls, describing them as the first real de-extinction. Though a cloned Pyrenean ibex was briefly born in 2003, it died minutes after birth—making the dire wolves the first to survive.