Scientists Bring Back Extinct Animal After 10,000 Years

Dire wolves have not walked the planet for nearly 10,000 years. But thanks to advancements in science, the long-extinct canine has been brought back to existence.

On Monday morning, genetic engineering company Colossal Biosciences announced that it had successfully brought back the dire wolf from extinction using a process that included extracting DNA from two fossils and making different 20 edits to the genetic code of a gray wolf – the species’ closest living relative – to replicate the DNA of a dire wolf.

The scientists then used domestic dogs as surrogate mothers and three dire wolves – Romulus, Remus, and their sister Khaleesi – were brought into the world during three separate births last fall and this winter.

 “Our team took DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies,” says Colossal CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm in a statement via The Hollywood Reporter. “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 and its broader impact on conservation.”

While the dire wolf might be the first animal Colossal Biosciences has successfully brought back from extinction, the company hopes that it won't be the last. The company has a few more animals on its de-extinction wish list, including the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the thylacine – also known as the Tasmanian tiger.

While bringing an animal back from extinction certainly grabs headlines, the company hopes that the technology can be used to prevent species from going extinct in the first place, especially as humanity grows and pushes more and more species to the brink of extinction.

“If we want a future that is both bionumerous and filled with people,” Colossal’s chief science officer Beth Shapiro told Time Magazine, “we should be giving ourselves the opportunity to see what our big brains can do to reverse some of the bad things that we’ve done to the world already.”

It sounds like a page right out of a science-fiction novel, but the dire wolves are very real.