Direwolf has been Cloned

[DefinitelyNOTDilo]

The point of the thread as far as I can tell is to separate what's true and what isn't so that the strongest argument possible can be constructed

[Carnoking]

I'll admit, I had the same knee jerk reaction to the fact that Colossal used Grey Wolves and made the claim that they were the closest living relatives of Dire Wolves given the 2021 paper, and the cynical side of my mind felt they did indeed design them to be white to make them more in line with what people thought Dire Wolves should look like based on their appearance in pop culture (ironically, I believe this is a conversation between Wu and Hammond in the Jurassic Park novel)

Then today I come to learn Shapiro, who had a hand in this project at Colossal, also co-authored that same 2021 article, so if anyone has anything to say on the matter I'm sure it's her.

I am very keen to see the research on Dire Wolves gleaned from this work published, and I do think the announcement and publication should have coincided with each other. Without any paper, all we have to go off of is "trust us bro, they were white"

All that is to say that I at least learned something from this thread and appreciate it for that

[Saarlooswolfhound]

All the articles I've read mention the method of using surrogate dog mothers for gestation and that Romulus and Remus were born through cesarean section to two different mothers.

They also highlight that there are currently no plans to breed them but they hope to create a few more through the same methods for these first 3.

I believe all of this is covered in the lengthy but informative article from the New Yorker

Thank you- I haven't seen any mention of their gestation process yet so I appreciate your response here.

Once again, this detail is the same as the issue with cloning a mammoth- a dog (nor a gray wolf) for that matter would have the same embryonic biome that a long extinct Aenocyon would have. Its the closest approximation, but there woukd undoubtedly be variables that would affect these offspring. Let alone I doubt that they allowed these dog mothers to help raise them while young but you run into the issue of what @Faelrin mentioned with inherent genetic memory being lost but also cultural learning from conspecific elders.

To some degree it'll be there on the gray wolf side (several studies on dog vs. wolf pups being raised by humans have proved that wolves are inherently wolves [independent and not interested in people] while dogs are clearly domesticated [they look to people for learning and social interaction etc.]). But once again, while these may be the closest approximation to what we conceive as a "dire wolf", it can never hope to be. And IMO, this technology would be better off if used for critically endangered species and recently extinct animals (such as the first extinct clone of the Pyrenean ibex back in the 2000s).

[Faelrin]

I have just come across a reddit thread with some very important info. My apologies if it crosses the politics thing, but I'm just trying to share more info about this. Particularly the info in the linked screenshots (first two comments), which is someone in the US government claiming there needs to be more innovation and less regulation in regards to the Endangered Species Act (in addition to the further spread of misinformation regarding these as dire wolves, and that they have been brought back from extinction), as well as Colossal's (failed) attempt to defend themselves, including continuing with the false de-extinction narrative. It's not a good look imo.

https://reddit.com/r/Paleontology/comments/1juf6os/the_insidious_political_role_colossals_claims/

Thinking more about this from a conservation angle, I'm not at all a fan of changing up nature's genomes to fix a mess we created, without instead of directly addressing the mess created (deforestation and loss of habitat, climate change, poaching, etc). Though I do think there could be legitimate uses for it, such as helping bats become resistant to white nose syndrome, a fungus that has been decimating their numbers for quite a while now, or intervening with Tasmanian devils spreading cancer through their face biting (devil facial tumor disease or DFTD), although I am aware there has been conservation work put into both of these issues, and treatments being created. I do not think it should be used to let the environment continue being destroyed, and then use this technology to give animals a second chance as I highly doubt the less charismatic of those will receive any attention (which is still problematic for many endangered and threatened animals that aren't popular with the general public, such as the Giant Panda, etc).

[Protopatch]

When the sorcerer's apprentice meets nature...
In short, to be continued, for better or worse.

[andrewsaurus rex]

Just because the pup's coats are white now, doesn't mean they will stay white as they mature.  Young mammals often have very different coat colours from their parents.  A transition from white to red does seem a bit of a stretch however but i'm not sure how solid the evidence for dire wolves having red coats is.

As has been said, there is no way to say these are really dire wolves but rather an attempt to mimic the dire wolf.  There was no doubt missing information in the dire wolf dna they had and, just like JP, they would have had to guess or insert the genes of another similar animal ie grey wolves.

While i would love to see extinct animals brought back, i am concerned about the accuracy of those animals, although some would argue half a cake is better than none.

My other concern is how those animals get treated.   Will they live lives of experimentation and endless mistreatment like circus animals of old (and to an extent still ongoing)?

[Trenchcoated Rebbachisaur]

The website features an illustration of a Direwolf family featuring adults (implied to be paleoart), and those are white, too. Unless Colossal treated that artist with the same silence they use on everybody with ethical concerns, chances are they do indeed think/pretend to think adult dires were also white.

[Faelrin]

Some really interesting videos from Raptor Chatter and hankschannel on this:

Unfortunately Hank does continue to spread the misinterpretation of the 2021 paper that jackals are more closely related to the dire wolf, but otherwise I think his points still stand.

[Faelrin]

Pre-print (not yet peer reviewed and published) of the paper:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.09.647074v1

Worth noting George R. R. Martin, the author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series (which the GoT series is based on) is one of the authors of the paper, though who knows how much involvement he may have had.

The competeing interest statement is worth checking out too. Kind of obvious but at least it is laid out like that.

[DinoToyForum]

Worth noting George R. R. Martin, the author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series (which the GoT series is based on) is one of the authors of the paper, though who knows how much involvement he may have had.

Journals these days usually require an Author Contributions section or statement to justify authorship.

[stargatedalek]

I think there is a real conversation to be had about using artificial hybrids for de-extinction and it needs to be had because so many of the previous de-extinction projects have been painfully perfectionist to the point of rendering themselves irrelevant. If they had fully modified the genes to match, I would be fine with calling them direwolves, semantics aside. But that doesn't make Colossal's ridiculous press gibberish and general projected incompetence any more tolerable.

[Protopatch]

Pre-print (not yet peer reviewed and published) of the paper:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.09.647074v1

The link doesn't work on my end.
Apparently their system is checking whether or not I'm a real human but it keeps crunching lol

[DinoToyForum]

Pre-print (not yet peer reviewed and published) of the paper:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.09.647074v1

The link doesn't work on my end.
Apparently their system is checking whether or not I'm a real human but it keeps crunching lol

It also crashed my iPad browser when I tried to look at it.

[Protopatch]

It also crashed my iPad browser when I tried to look at it.

@Faelrin help please !

[Faelrin]

Weird, it's working for me just fine on my mobile firefox (and ublock origin).

The title of the pre-print is "On the ancestry and evolution of the extinct dire wolf" if anyone would like to search for it on the homepage: https://www.biorxiv.org/

Also thanks to the info from @DinoToyForum as I can see he is resposible for just "writing – review & editing", among others.

[DinoToyForum]

Weird, it's working for me just fine on my mobile firefox (and ublock origin).

The title of the pre-print is "On the ancestry and evolution of the extinct dire wolf" if anyone would like to search for it on the homepage: https://www.biorxiv.org/

Also thanks to the info from @DinoToyForum as I can see he is resposible for just "writing – review & editing", among others.

In other words, he shouldn't be an author. If his only contribution was reviewing and editing, then he's a reviewer/editor and should be thanked in the acknowledgements as such, rather than listed as an author. If reviewing and editing were enough to get you authorship I'd be an author on about 100 more papers myself.

[Shane]

Fun little update at the New Scientist.

Seems like Colossal is backing off of its more sensationalist descriptions of "de-extinct dire wolves" and now making it clear that these are gray wolves with a few gene edits.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2481409-colossal-scientist-now-admits-they-havent-really-made-dire-wolves/

[Saarlooswolfhound]

At least they've dialed back after all that flak! I haven't read the article yet but their claims were grossly exaggerated to begin with.

[Shane]

At least they've dialed back after all that flak! I haven't read the article yet but their claims were grossly exaggerated to begin with.

It's frustrating because in the article, Colossal is talking about it like they've ALWAYS maintained these were simply modified gray wolves, and they're mystified why anyone would think otherwise.

As if they didn't run a massive "DE-EXTINCTION" media blitz and repeatedly refer to the animals as "dire wolves" in press releases.

They're reckless and have caused actual harm here, especially with many less than scrupulous actors using their "de-extinction" language to argue for fewer protections for endangered species.

[Torvosaurus]

My brother is up here from Texas and started talking about these "dire" wolves just a few days ago. I had to make it clear that these "de-extinct" animals were simply gray wolves whose genes had been manipulated to have dire wolf-like traits. That recklessness you mention has folks (who really don't understand the biology, or more importantly, those who don't follow-up on the news reports) actually believing that the dire wolf has been cloned. So yeah, the harm is irreversible because most people don't have anyone who can set them straight and allows for those less than scrupulous actors to get away with their arguments that much easier.

Torvo