From Legal Insurrection

Posted by Leslie Eastman 

The last time I reported on the scientists at Colossal Biosciences, they had have created a genetically engineered mouse dubbed the “woolly mouse” as a step towards their goal of resurrecting the woolly mammoth.

The end product of their work was a new breed of mouse exhibiting several mammoth-like traits.

Now, the team has done something that I would have thought impossible: Using genetic technology to revive an animal even cuter….the dire wolf.

As with the mice, Colossal Biosciences used genetic engineering to recreate traits of the extinct dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus). Two genetically modified gray wolves, named Romulus and Remus, after the mythological twins, were born in October 2024.

These wolves were engineered using CRISPR technology to incorporate 20 genetic edits that mimic dire wolf characteristics, such as larger size, stronger jaws, broader heads, white coats, and unique vocalizations.

The dire wolf once roamed an American range that extended as far south as Venezuela and as far north as Canada, but not a single one has been seen in over 10,000 years, when the species went extinct. Plenty of dire wolf remains have been discovered across the Americas, however, and that presented an opportunity for a company named Colossal Biosciences.

Relying on deft genetic engineering and ancient, preserved DNA, Colossal scientists deciphered the dire wolf genome, rewrote the genetic code of the common gray wolf to match it, and, using domestic dogs as surrogate mothers, brought Romulus, Remus, and their sister, 2-month-old Khaleesi, into the world during three separate births last fall and this winter—effectively for the first time de-extincting a line of beasts whose live gene pool long ago vanished. TIME met the males (Khaleesi was not present due to her young age) at a fenced field in a U.S. wildlife facility on March 24, on the condition that their location remain a secret to protect the animals from prying eyes.

And while the company may be keeping the puppies hidden from the public, Romulus and Remus have become a media sensation. Part of the excitement is based on the dire wolves being a key feature of the popular HBO series, Game of Thrones. Colossal Biosciences is claiming a “de-extinction” success, and plans now include reviving a red wolf species.

They are big, for one thing, and have dense, pale coats not found in gray wolves. Colossal, which was valued at $10 billion in January, is keeping the wolves on a private 2,000-acre facility at an undisclosed location in the northern United States.

Beth Shapiro, the chief scientific officer of Colossal, described the wolf pups as the first successful case of de-extinction. “We’re creating these functional copies of something that used to be alive,” she said in an interview.

The animals will remain in captivity. But the technology that the company has developed could potentially help conserve species that have not yet gone extinct, such as the critically endangered red wolf, which is largely limited to North Carolina.

In 2022, red wolf-coyote hybrids were discovered in Texas and Louisiana. On Monday, Colossal also announced that it had produced four clones from the hybrids. Hypothetically, introducing these clones to North Carolina could improve the genetic diversity of the red wolf population there and help the species avoid extinction.

Interestingly, the author of Game of Thrones is an investor in the company.

And while the puppies are certainly cute, the branding of this as a “de-exctinction” is questionable.

There are other ethical considerations as well. Dire wolves were specialized predators that primarily hunted large herbivores such as bison, horses, and camels. Many of these megafaunal species either went extinct or experienced significant population declines at the end of the last Ice Age, likely due to climate change and super-charged human hunting abilities (especially when they paired up with regular dogs).

The only way these dire wolves become a revived species is

1) The entire genetic sequence is from actual dire wolves;
2) The breed on their own; and,
3) They can thrive in the wild.

I do not see this happening anytime soon.

Currently, as cute as Romulus and Remus are, they are a novelty and a species confined to zoological enclosures. But the howl is so precious.