> The sequences indicate the dire wolf to be a highly divergent lineage which last shared a most recent common ancestor with the wolf-like canines 5.7 million years ago. The study also measured numerous dire wolf and gray wolf skeletal samples that showed their morphologies to be highly similar, which had led to the theory that the dire wolf and the gray wolf had a close evolutionary relationship. The morphological similarity between dire wolves and gray wolves was concluded to be due to convergent evolution. Members of the wolf-like canines are known to hybridize with each other but the study could find no indication of genetic admixture from the five dire wolf samples with extant North American gray wolves and coyotes nor their common ancestor. This finding indicates that the wolf and coyote lineages evolved in isolation from the dire wolf lineage.
There are a lot of extant species that are as closely related as the wolf. Cheating based on phenotype sucks. We want real genetic diversity!
Best case, the female wolves they just just made are suitable mothers for the next round of hybrids, so they converge over time.
Wikipedia does not have an opinion, and is not a source according to Wikipedia. Always use the sources the Wikipedia users to cite anything. If Wikipedia does not have a reference, don’t cite it.
At some point far in the future, humanity will populate an entire planet with custom designed species, something like the engineers from prometheus. If only there were a way to live long enough to see all that.
Here's[0] a recent editorial about Colossal, the company behind this.
Basically, they make some flimsy claims about conservation and combating climate change to justify creating a poor imitation of Jurassic Park. Naturally, there's some real moral dilemmas that they gloss over in pursuit of the money a few wealthy people will pay to be able to say "I saw a Mammoth!"
Every project I've seen of theirs has been like this one: take an existing animal and tweak its genome very slightly to make it look kinda like the extinct one, then declare that they've brought back the extinct species. Never mind that it's still just a wolf with 14 very specific genes tweaked.
That could be just a limitation of the current technology and one that they're working on fixing—maybe some day they plan to bring back large amounts of lost genetic diversity—but their PR around it definitely communicates that they see this as the de-extinction project itself, which sure does make it look like they're only really interested in building a zoo, not actually rebuilding true biodiversity.
Plus, at a certain point we should probably ask what we're even doing here. At the same time and using the same ostensible "pro-environment" framework, we:
1. refuse to engage in biome modification to save soon-to-be-homeless species like the Axolotl,
2. are willing to go to great lengths to preserve existing biomes exactly as they are, such as opening up owl hunting permits to protect the western US's shittier owls from encroachment by the dominant eastern species, and
3. are trying to revive mammoths and dire wolves to increase biodiversity.
If we truly care about biodiversity, we should probably decide upfront why we aren't protecting some of the 400K species of beetles or 150K species of flies (together making up ~1/3rd of all animal species) instead.
Personally, my preferred answer is simpler: embrace human aesthetic preferences, rather than pretend we're doing all this for some altruistic, scientifically-supported cause. Not only should we respect nature, we should respect its inherent capacity for change and disregard for human morality. Nature is ambivalent towards mass extinctions, much less specific ones!
TBH, the Red Mars books' discussion around when and why to preserve abiotic martian landscapes may have radicalized me on this issue...
I really don’t even see the point in “deextincting” animals that went extinct due to climate or geological changes. They’re not even fit for the present ecology anymore. De-extinction of species that died due to industrialization or human stress on the environment makes a lot more sense since there is, presumably, a vacant ecological niche they could be filling. Like bringing back the passenger pigeon or dodo bird, or repopulating the oceans with species that have been critically overfished. But who cares about bringing back wooly mammoths and giant sloths?
I think Colossal is betting on the fact that the general public will fall for sensationalism of this sort because of the low level of biology knowledge. This story makes me think Colossal is rather better at marketing than they are at genetics.
What they've created here are not actually dire wolves but a couple of timber wolves with about a dozen edits to 12 million gene pairs and the result is creatures that have phenotypic similarities to dire wolves but not their complete genetic signature.
14 isn't enough for you, though it is enough to influence looks to the point that it does look different enough, but how many genes need to be changed for it to count, for you? There's some 40 million differences between humans and chimpanzees, but only about 700 that are unique to humans.
That entire article just sounds like a collection of every naysayer argument they could find, compiled into an authoritative-sounding essay on why doing nothing is better than doing some very cool proof-of-concept genetic editing tech. Are they just reflexively against tech these days? Because when the arguments they bring are so scattered and miscellaneous, it sure sounds like they're justifying a preexisting opposition to the idea.
Collosal would face less pushback if they were upfront about the fact that they aren't a serious attempt at solving any ecological issues but that maybe they could push the tech forward enough that someone else could use it to solve real problems.
There's nothing wrong with building cool proof-of-concept tech as a prestige project that might actually lead to real solutions some day, but Collosal's dire wolf lookalike and mammoth lookalike and whatever else lookalike aren't a serious solution to a problem nor a direct path towards a solution, so they get valid criticism for pretending that they are.
The mammoth is the big PR project but Colossal is working on a number of species, and the idea is the research will enable us to easily "de-extinct" or prop up the population of any number of species if and when they're in danger.
Maybe in theory, but propping up an entire ecosystem in collapse is well beyond Colossal's reach and incentives. This money and research would be better spent preventing the ecosystems from collapsing in the first place.
If we fix climate change, I could see an argument for investing in restoring the ecosystems that were destroyed. But 'de-extincting' a species without addressing the root causes of that extinction is idiocy.
Realizing this, these types will give up on re-introducing the original organism and instead create a bioengineered version that can survive in the changed world. I fear this path will not end well for us.
this is basically George Church's MO. I respect him for his early work in sequencing, and he has some crazy/great ideas, but he also oversells everything to the press, which eats it up and spits out articles with the narrative "we're saving the world with this crazy idea"
> a few wealthy people will pay to be able to say "I saw a Mammoth!"
Oh come on, we already know the end goal is for the uber rich to be able to "hunt" a Mammoth in a small enclosure, then post tacky pics in safari clothes next to a dead one on Facebook.
Thank you; the opening paragraph of that article was fantastic.
> American Alsatians were first bred to create a family friendly dog breed that looks like a dire wolf. (The dire wolf is an ancient North American wolf species that became extinct around 13,000 years ago.) This dog has all the benefits of looking like a dire wolf, but it is calm and gentle enough to be a great pet. They are an intelligent, loving and gentle family dog [...]
"Has all the benefits of looking like a dire wolf" is a great phrase, and I think highly relevant to the OP article here and the disagreement I see in the HN comments between the people who think "the benefits of looking like a dire wolf" are self-evident and those who think they're non-existent. :)
"looking like a dire wolf" is exactly what Colossol has done. They just used CRISPR to modify some genes in a dog to give it traits of the dire wolf (white hair, large size, etc)
Containing fragments doesn't mean this is a dire wolf, or does it? Biological categories like species are fuzzy anyway. There is tremendous variation within each species. But where do you draw a line?
It's something that perhaps has more in common with a dire wolf than extant wolves. Maybe it looks like one. Does it act like one? Do we have any way of knowing?
Yes, species/lineage/population distinctions are quite fuzzy at the level of divergence under consideration here (dire wolves vs gray wolves).
Here's what was actually have done according to the New Yorker article, starting with a gray wolf genome as the baseline:
After almost a year of computational genetic analysis, Colossal researchers used Crispr to make twenty edits on fourteen genes. Fifteen edits were derived from Colossal’s study of the dire-wolf genome and five tweaks were derived from scrutiny of the gray-wolf genome.
20 edits and 14 genes -- clearly some related to coat color, however:
But the genes that guided coat color presented a problem: they carried with them a risk of blindness and deafness. (In humans, variations of these genes can lead to Waardenburg syndrome, which causes pigmentation deficiencies, among other problems.) So the group decided to edit a different gene that, when expressed in dogs, also codes for a lighter coat.
So the coat color alleles are NOT the dire wolf alleles.
I don't get it, so dire wolves were only 20 gene changes from gray wolves? Not thousands of tiny,crucial changes all over their respective genetic codes?
These aren't even concerns limited to genetic engineering. There was a good (if memory serves) Radiolab story ages ago about the conservation efforts on the Galapagos islands. The relevant part is that Lonesome George's genome died out with him, and as a result there aren't any tortoises left that can fill the fauna niche on his island of origin. But since the tortoises on other islands are closely genetically related (even given the separation between them), ecologists started a multi-generational breeding program to attempt to select the key traits of Lonesome George's strain so they can introduce a new population to the island that will do the same job his lineage did in the food web.
... which begs the question: when you're doing Bene-Gesserit-style eugenics on tortoises to get the perfect specimens, what's the nature of the nature you're trying to preserve?
Humans cannot interact with the natural world without changing it, because it is the nature of life (and human life in particular) to change things. The question isn't how we don't make an impact; it's how do we manage that impact responsibly?
(I have no idea if breeding dire-wolf-alikes with genetic modification is responsible or not. Let me know if they get out of the lab and become an invasive species, I think).
I have to agree. While this is a very cool achievement and I'm excited to see what this company does next, it seems disingenuous to claim they brought a species back from extinction. The pups are still genetically much more like modern wolves than they are dire wolves.
I wish people would focus more on increasing dog lifespans instead of stuff like this. How about a Bernese Mountain Dog that lives 15+ years instead of 7 years.
Yes - but put the emphasis on healthy, productive lifespans. NOT on "prolong the suffering, for the benefit of the private-equity-owned veterinary clinic" crap.
Readit News
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dire_wolf#DNA_evidence Look at this caldogram and text
> The sequences indicate the dire wolf to be a highly divergent lineage which last shared a most recent common ancestor with the wolf-like canines 5.7 million years ago. The study also measured numerous dire wolf and gray wolf skeletal samples that showed their morphologies to be highly similar, which had led to the theory that the dire wolf and the gray wolf had a close evolutionary relationship. The morphological similarity between dire wolves and gray wolves was concluded to be due to convergent evolution. Members of the wolf-like canines are known to hybridize with each other but the study could find no indication of genetic admixture from the five dire wolf samples with extant North American gray wolves and coyotes nor their common ancestor. This finding indicates that the wolf and coyote lineages evolved in isolation from the dire wolf lineage.
There are a lot of extant species that are as closely related as the wolf. Cheating based on phenotype sucks. We want real genetic diversity!
Best case, the female wolves they just just made are suitable mothers for the next round of hybrids, so they converge over time.
This however disagreed with Wikipedia, and said there was some inbreeding. That helps make this less fake.
Be it a pale shadow or not, this is a first milestone down a path I hope we continue on.
Basically, they make some flimsy claims about conservation and combating climate change to justify creating a poor imitation of Jurassic Park. Naturally, there's some real moral dilemmas that they gloss over in pursuit of the money a few wealthy people will pay to be able to say "I saw a Mammoth!"
[0]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/editorial-mammoth-de...
That could be just a limitation of the current technology and one that they're working on fixing—maybe some day they plan to bring back large amounts of lost genetic diversity—but their PR around it definitely communicates that they see this as the de-extinction project itself, which sure does make it look like they're only really interested in building a zoo, not actually rebuilding true biodiversity.
1. refuse to engage in biome modification to save soon-to-be-homeless species like the Axolotl,
2. are willing to go to great lengths to preserve existing biomes exactly as they are, such as opening up owl hunting permits to protect the western US's shittier owls from encroachment by the dominant eastern species, and
3. are trying to revive mammoths and dire wolves to increase biodiversity.
If we truly care about biodiversity, we should probably decide upfront why we aren't protecting some of the 400K species of beetles or 150K species of flies (together making up ~1/3rd of all animal species) instead.
Personally, my preferred answer is simpler: embrace human aesthetic preferences, rather than pretend we're doing all this for some altruistic, scientifically-supported cause. Not only should we respect nature, we should respect its inherent capacity for change and disregard for human morality. Nature is ambivalent towards mass extinctions, much less specific ones!
TBH, the Red Mars books' discussion around when and why to preserve abiotic martian landscapes may have radicalized me on this issue...
What they've created here are not actually dire wolves but a couple of timber wolves with about a dozen edits to 12 million gene pairs and the result is creatures that have phenotypic similarities to dire wolves but not their complete genetic signature.
There's nothing wrong with building cool proof-of-concept tech as a prestige project that might actually lead to real solutions some day, but Collosal's dire wolf lookalike and mammoth lookalike and whatever else lookalike aren't a serious solution to a problem nor a direct path towards a solution, so they get valid criticism for pretending that they are.
At best, it'll be a very expensive zoo.
Perhaps they could have a coupon day?
Maybe in theory, but propping up an entire ecosystem in collapse is well beyond Colossal's reach and incentives. This money and research would be better spent preventing the ecosystems from collapsing in the first place.
If we fix climate change, I could see an argument for investing in restoring the ecosystems that were destroyed. But 'de-extincting' a species without addressing the root causes of that extinction is idiocy.
Realizing this, these types will give up on re-introducing the original organism and instead create a bioengineered version that can survive in the changed world. I fear this path will not end well for us.
Oh come on, we already know the end goal is for the uber rich to be able to "hunt" a Mammoth in a small enclosure, then post tacky pics in safari clothes next to a dead one on Facebook.
> American Alsatians were first bred to create a family friendly dog breed that looks like a dire wolf. (The dire wolf is an ancient North American wolf species that became extinct around 13,000 years ago.) This dog has all the benefits of looking like a dire wolf, but it is calm and gentle enough to be a great pet. They are an intelligent, loving and gentle family dog [...]
"Has all the benefits of looking like a dire wolf" is a great phrase, and I think highly relevant to the OP article here and the disagreement I see in the HN comments between the people who think "the benefits of looking like a dire wolf" are self-evident and those who think they're non-existent. :)
It's something that perhaps has more in common with a dire wolf than extant wolves. Maybe it looks like one. Does it act like one? Do we have any way of knowing?
Here's what was actually have done according to the New Yorker article, starting with a gray wolf genome as the baseline:
After almost a year of computational genetic analysis, Colossal researchers used Crispr to make twenty edits on fourteen genes. Fifteen edits were derived from Colossal’s study of the dire-wolf genome and five tweaks were derived from scrutiny of the gray-wolf genome.
20 edits and 14 genes -- clearly some related to coat color, however:
But the genes that guided coat color presented a problem: they carried with them a risk of blindness and deafness. (In humans, variations of these genes can lead to Waardenburg syndrome, which causes pigmentation deficiencies, among other problems.) So the group decided to edit a different gene that, when expressed in dogs, also codes for a lighter coat.
So the coat color alleles are NOT the dire wolf alleles.
... which begs the question: when you're doing Bene-Gesserit-style eugenics on tortoises to get the perfect specimens, what's the nature of the nature you're trying to preserve?
Humans cannot interact with the natural world without changing it, because it is the nature of life (and human life in particular) to change things. The question isn't how we don't make an impact; it's how do we manage that impact responsibly?
(I have no idea if breeding dire-wolf-alikes with genetic modification is responsible or not. Let me know if they get out of the lab and become an invasive species, I think).
Dead Comment
Only the Marketing Dept. (and some gullible-when-it-pays-to-be reporters) think they are Dire Wolves.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250407131025/https://www.newyo...