In case you don’t have any nerdy “Game of Thrones” or Dungeons and Dragons-loving people in your friend group, allow us to break some news for you — the dire wolf has been brought back from extinction by Dallas-based company Colossal Biosciences.
The species, which went extinct about 12,000 years ago, largely inhabited a wide range of habitats in North America (but did stretch down to South American savannas) from grasslands to forested mountain areas. They were carnivores and thought likely to eat larger prey like bison, horses, and potentially mammoths.
Colossal was able to revive the species via a “Jurassic Park"-esque process using DNA extracted from a dire wolf’s fossilized tooth and inner ear bone found in different parts of the US. They then compared the extracted DNA genomes with close living relatives, and wham — the dire wolf returns.
Colossal created three dire wolves, named Romulus + Remus after the ancient Roman legend and Khaleesi after the “Game of Thrones” heroine. They’re being kept in an undisclosed, 2,000-acre wild habitat in the northern US — that has been certified by the American Humane Society — where there is on-site veterinarian services, husbandry facilities, extreme weather shelters, and a natural den.
But why do all of this? To return the species (and others to come) back into the world’s increasingly less diverse food web and develop the ability to protect keystone species in partnership with conservationist organizations and local Indigenous tribes.
But since the dire wolf is no longer just a fictional creature, let’s brush up on some other quick facts.
- They tend to average 3.4-3.8 ft in height, 5.2-6.1 ft in length, and 130-160 lbs in weight.
- The wolves are being fed six lbs of meat and three cups of dry food daily — with increasing whole prey as the wolves mature.
- Dire wolves have distinctly enhanced mechanosensory genes that affect their whisker length, ear shape, and their vocalizations.
- They also have more pronounced shoulders, a wider head, larger jaws + teeth, and more muscular legs.
- They are more closely related to jackals than gray wolves, despite their appearances.
Now watch as they howl for the first time in 12,000 years.
