It seems that the legendary, long-lost dire wolf has come out of its 10,000-some years of extinction to make a few headlines, thanks to Colossal Biosciences, a company that claims to be “the world’s only de-extinction company.” While some experts dispute this “scientific breakthrough” with claims that ancient DNA is too fragile to clone, the story has already captured the world’s attention.
The dire wolf reborn?
On April 7, 2025, the company announced the birth of three litters of dire wolves, including two adolescent males, Romulus and Remus, and one female puppy named Khaleesi.
To do this, Colossal says its team of scientists extracted ancient DNA from two dire wolf fossils: a ~13,000-year-old tooth from Sheridan Pit, Ohio, and an inner ear bone from American Falls, Idaho, which is estimated to be 72,000 years old. The DNA was then sequenced and compared to the ancient genomes from living Caninae (canines) like wolves, jackals, and foxes.
From there, the company determined that dire wolves had a white coat colour and a long, thick fur — consistent with animals that lived during the Ice Ages. However, Colossal claims these conclusions could not be made from fossils alone.
They then performed “multiplex gene editing to a genome from their closest living relative, the grey wolf,” resulting in “high-quality cell lines that were transferred into donor egg cells,” thus birthing an extinct species.
“Colossal has achieved American Humane Society Certification, the prestigious designation ensuring excellence in animal welfare and care,” says Robin Ganzert, Ph.D., CEO of American Humane Society. “We congratulate Colossal as a shining example of excellence in humane care and welfare. The technology they are pursuing may be the key to reversing the sixth mass extinction and making extinction events a thing of the past.”
Reconstructing species of the past
It’s not the first time Colossal has sought to bring back species of the past. According to the American Humane Society, the company worked alongside the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation in November 2024 to reintroduce the dodo bird to its once native habitat off the coast of Madagascar.
To achieve this, the society says that bioengineers are combining the bird’s reconstructed genome with its closest living relative, the Nicobar Pigeon, to create an animal that is “indiscernible from what we know of the dodo’s appearance.”
The only known dire wolf in Canada
According to Phys.org, there’s only one formally identified dire wolf fossil in Canada. Discovered near Medicine Hat, Alta., in 1969, the fossil was first identified as a dire wolf by C.S. Churcher in an unpublished report to the Geological Survey of Canada in 1970, based on its large size. However, it was never described in detail to confirm the initial identification.
“Dire wolves are a larger, extinct canid cousin of the gray wolf with more muscular builds and with more powerful jaws,” says Phys.org. “They must have been a fierce competitor because their territory ranges often overlapped with other large predators, most frequently saber-toothed cats three times their size.”
Originating from the late Pleistocene of southern Canada, the fossil was later studied by researcher Ashley R. Reynolds at the Department of Natural History, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. After uncovering the first evidence of a Canadian saber-toothed cat, Reynolds analyzed more fossil material from the same excavation site to formally identify the dire wolf from a fossilized jawbone.
According to Reynolds’ 2023 study, the fossil marks the only record of the species in Canada and the northernmost occurrence of the dire wolf in North America.
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