The Stark family’s favorite pet just got resurrected.
Colossal Biosciences, the biotech start-up that’s attempting to revive the woolly mammoth, has brought not just one, but three dire wolves back from extinction. The species, which garnered plenty of attention in Games of Thrones, has not been seen on Earth for over 10,000 years, Bloomberg reported.
The pups in question are Remus and Romulus, two 6-month-old brothers that weigh 80 pounds each and extend four feet long, as well as the younger Khaleesi, a two-month-old female named after Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen in the Thrones franchise. For reference, the brothers are nearly 20 to 25 percent larger than their closest living relative, the gray wolf, would be at the same age—and the duo is expected to be 140 pounds each when they’re fully grown. Among other differences, Remus and Romulus also have wider heads, larger teeth and jaws, and more muscular legs than its kin, Time reported. The trio currently live in a fenced-in nature preserve (in an undisclosed U.S. location), surviving off a diet of beef, deer, and horse meat, along with a special kibble.
Of course, the process of reviving these animals was no walk in the park. Colossal reached out to U.S. museums to uncover samples of dire wolves’ DNA; the team ended up uncovering the species genome in a 72,000-year-old ear bone in American Falls, Idaho, and a 13,000-year-old tooth in Sheridan Pit, Ohio, according to Time.
What came next may seem like science fiction. Colossal used those samples to discover the dire wolf’s key traits in its DNA. It then utilized that information to determine what changes would need to be made to a gray wolf’s genes to bring the dire wolf back to life. Turns out, only 20 edits to 14 genes—out of 19,000—were necessary; the start-up took a blood sample from a gray wolf, rewrote those key genes in the nucleus of the chosen cell (known as endothelial progenitor cells, which make up the lining of blood vessels), and went on to create embryos, which were then inserted into the wombs of two surrogate dogs, Time reported. After that, Remus and Romulus were born, and Khaleesi came shortly after via another surrogate mother.
Based in Dallas, Colossal Biosciences came onto the scene in 2022, when, as we mentioned, the biotech company publicized its mission to revive the woolly mammoth. Now, the start-up has a $10 billion valuation, with names like Lords of the Rings director Peter Jackson and Paris Hilton investing in the endeavor, according to Bloomberg. As of now, Colossal has only brought a woolly mouse onto the scene, but it has ambitions to also “de-extinct” other creatures, such as the dodo bird and the Tasmanian tiger, with its gene-editing tech. Its goal is to enhance the Earth’s biodiversity, among other intentions.
“If we are successful in de-extinction, we’re building technologies that can help human health care and conservation,” Colossal CEO Ben Lamm told the publication. “Just that piece of the larger system is worth billions of dollars.”
Some scientists have been critical of the idea, pondering the environmental ramifications of a long-deceased species re-entering the biosphere and the ethics behind altering nature, Bloomberg reported.
“It’s better to prevent extinctions in the first place, rather than bring back bio-replicas whose ‘reintroduction’ may have a host of unintended consequences,” Karl Flessa, a paleontologist at the University of Arizona, told the publication earlier this year, speaking on the possible return of the woolly mammoth.
For now, though, the dire wolf is back from the dead, a monumental scientific feat—but only time will tell how the fruits of Colossal’s labor will affect the world.
