To anyone who follows me, I don't care about nor trust Colossal Biosciences anymore (The people behind the "Wooly Mice"). They have proven themselves to be headline-chasing grifters after this latest stunt. They are claiming to have de-extincted *Aenocyon dirus*, aka the Dire Wolf, by editing just 20 genes from the the DNA of a Grey Wolf (*Canis lupus*) to make this thing:
If it wasn't clear from their scientific names, Grey Wolves and Dire Wolves aren't remotely related to one another aside from being Canids, despite what pop culture like Game of Thrones would have you believe. If they did look like each other, it would have had to be via convergent evolution, as they only shared a common ancestor over 5 million years ago.
This distinction, however, isn't found in the publicized articles about this so-called resurrected Dire Wolf and makes their claim that they brought the Dire Wolf back by simply editing *20* genes from the genome of a Grey Wolf laughable. A Dire Wolf would have shared more in common genetically with a Maned Wolf (*Chrysocyon brachyurus*) or Bush Dog (*Speothos venaticus*) than it would with a Grey Wolf.
Bottom line, don't fall for whatever this company is trying to tell you. If the Dire Wolf were to be brought back, it wouldn't be via something like this, and certainly wouldn't *look* like this. If you want an idea as to how a real Dire Wolf would look like in life, here is some fantastic paleoart by artist Mauricio Antón:
Addendum: I seem to have partially miscalculated Dire Wolf genetics. They were not closer to Maned Wolves or Bush Dogs, but they were still not closely related to Grey Wolves. They were basal members of Canini, related to canids like Jackals (genus Lupulella) but distinct from them. I am sorry for this misinformation in my attempt to correct other misinformation. My main point, however, is still correct.
I tried to keep in mind that these animals would've lived in grassland/savannah ecosystems. Therefore, I was mainly inspired by jackals, dholes, and iberian wolves for the most part.
Yes, this also started out of a bit of spite for the colossal bioscience stuff. I think it's fair to say those fluffy white "game of thrones" wolf-dogs with overbites are not dire wolves in the slightest.
Unfortunatly I still think my version reads too dog-like in the face and jaw (specifically german shepherds and such) so I still have a lot to learn and improve on, but this was a fun experiment nevertheless 😅
So, first off, as a paleontologist… thank you for that rant. It’s been driving me up the wall that people are going “oh look we revived the dire wolf using gray wolves!!” Even if you ignore the whole issue of de-extinction wolves aren’t even the closest living relative! Jackals and African wild dogs are more closely related to it, and they aren’t anywhere close to being in the same genus.
And of course, de-extinction is a whole other issue. Why are they so focused on the mammoth? At least the thylacine went extinct about a hundred years ago so the niche could still be there. But still, why focus on them? If you want to de-extinct something, why not focus on, oh I don’t know, the northern white rhino which still has two living members for sequencing and who have a living subspecies.
And further more, it’s genuinely cruel to bring most of these back. You think a wooly mammoth that lived in the last glacial maximum would be happy in todays climate that is consistently getting hotter? You think the dodo would appreciate the fact that it’s one habitat has been mostly destroyed? You think the thylacine would enjoy trying to outcompete the dingos that have moved into its niche? No. They wouldn’t.
For the mammoths, it’s especially cruel since they are herd animals and you’d need to clone a lot of them at one time for them to be happy.
And I mean, look. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to see these creatures alive. As unlikely as it is, I keep a sliver of hope that the thylacine might still be out there. But that doesn’t mean de-extinction is good. Like it or not, they went extinct for a reason. Yes, that reason may be because of humans, but it is still a reason. You bring them back and they’ll go extinct again unless they are given extreme protection.
They need to focus on living creatures or, if they are desperate to bring something that’s completely extinct back, focus on creatures that have gone extinct within the last two decades.
Ugh, sorry for the mini rant but as someone who understands extinction (including the current Anthropocene mass extinction), bringing things back is not the way to go. I can point to multiple genuses that went extinct for a good reason.
Hello fellow palaeontologist! 🤝
My area of study was actually Dromornithid ichnotaxonomy but carnivorans are holding me hostage nowadays, it seems...
Unfortunately, you have fallen prey to another (thankfully, less insidious) piece of misinformation! Dire wolves aren't wolves, but they are no more closely related to Jackals or African Wild Dogs!
Aenocyon is an outgroup to all wolf-like canids, jackals included!
I've seen the Aenocyon/Lupulella/Lycaon relatedness touted often, and am guilty of repeating it myself before I re-read the paper.
A possible reason for this confusion that African jackals are considered the most basal of the extant, wolf-like canids; as seen on the cladogram above.
Therefore, the ~5.7million year old common ancestor of Aenocyon and the wolf/jackal/dhole lineage would likely have looked more like a jackal. Then Aenocyon convergently evolved a very wolfish skeleton because of their similar lifestyles!
This is also why I chose to reconstructed my Aenocyon with a shoulder patch, seeing many canids seem to have some sort of cape marking.
The 2021 paper that concluded the dire wolf isn't a wolf at all, is unfortunately paywalled :/
Without full access to the paper it's hard to be sure exactly where Aenocyon fits within the larger Canidae family tree (if they discussed it at all), but the abstract describes them as having "an early New World origin".
It seems they were a true outgroup to modern wolf-like canids, being the earliest branching member of Canina! They're not too different from sabercats, in that way.
Also if anyone is following the ongoing edit war on the Dire Wolf Wikipedia page, I beg you to ignore the "taxonomy based on morphology" section. It is only useful as a historical reference for how we used to view Aenocyon dirus as Canis dirus for a long time. Current science supports these morphological similarities being convergent, contrary to what Colossal Lies are being told...
---
I already partially addressed Mammoths (and the issues with their herds inbreeding) in this other ask, but I do agree completely with your points.
Having the GMO wolves raised without another older wolf or dog parental figures is frankly, just cruel. Any vet will tell you hand-reared and imprinted animals are significantly more prone to behavioural issues down the line.
Mammoths would be worse again, because unlike Romulus and Remus, there is no chance of even having a twin to keep them company.
And yes; What could possibly go wrong with bringing back a polar-adapted, woolly proboscidean, into a world where even winters are getting progressively warmer?
I too, would love to see extinct animals in the wild. I'd be lying if I said I don't secretly hope for many of them to pull a coelacanth on us.
But sadly, I don't think that's likely, and nor do I think we should be trying to make it happen.
---
Hank Green brought up something poignant about this dire wolf debacle, which is that extinction is not as simplistic as we imagine it to be. It's not just the death of a species.
"It's the destruction of a space in the natural environment for a species."
And that is really it, you can't just "bring back" an extinct species, because you aren't bringing their niche back with them.
Successful reintroductions of species that were locally extirpated or made entirely extinct in the wild have only worked because effort was put into securing a niche and ecosystem that had been lost.
And even well-planned, well-funded reintroductions struggle, but at least they understood the assignment.
Colossal, on the other hand, seems to think that adding back their very-roughly-wolf-shaped 'jenga block' to the ecosystem 'tower' will completely stop the collapse. But the real 'collapse' is caused by habitat destruction, and no amount of GMO wolves, mammoths or thylacines can stop that.
Bringing the species in to save the ecosystem is climbing ass-first up a tree. We need to save the ecosystem for the species.
And all this is still ignoring the sad truth for a lot of extinct animals:
