DNA taken from 13000-year-old tooth brings back 'Dire Wolves'— the first ever 'de-extinction'

The idea of bringing back extinct species has long felt like science fiction, but one company says it has made it a reality. Colossal Biosciences claims it has successfully completed the world’s first true de-extinction, and the animal they brought back is one that hasn’t walked the Earth in over 12,000 years: the dire wolf. In what the Dallas-based company is calling a historic breakthrough, scientists have used ancient DNA, cloning, and CRISPR gene editing to produce three dire wolf pups. The animals were created by altering gray wolf cells to express traits unique to Aenocyon dirus, the ancient predator once common across North America.

Colossal CEO Ben Lamm said, "Our team took DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies." He called the achievement "a massive milestone" and said it proves the company’s "end-to-end de-extinction technology stack works," as per CNN. Two of the pups, Romulus and Remus, were born on October 1, 2024. The third, a female named Khaleesi, arrived on January 30, 2025. The pups were named after legendary and fictional figures tied to wolves. Romulus and Remus reference Rome’s mythological founders who were raised by a she-wolf. Khaleesi takes her name from a character in HBO’s Game of Thrones, where dire wolves play a central role.

All three were delivered via surrogates—large, mixed-breed domestic dogs—and are now housed in a 2,000-acre enclosure at a confidential location. To produce the animals, Colossal and its collaborators began by sequencing high-quality genomes from two dire wolf fossils. They then identified 20 edits across 14 genes that would give modern gray wolves physical traits associated with the extinct species, such as thicker white fur, larger jaws, and broader heads. Love Dalén, professor in evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University and an adviser to Colossal, said, "There’s no secret that across the genome, this is 99.9% gray wolf. It carries dire wolf genes, and these genes make it look more like a dire wolf than anything we’ve seen in the last 13,000 years. And that is very cool," reported the outlet.

Beth Shapiro, Colossal’s chief scientist, told ABC News, "I had all the confidence that this was going to work." She also said, "So when I saw them born and they were white, I was like, 'We've done it. Those are dire wolves.'" In addition to the dire wolf, the company is working on bringing back the Tasmanian tiger, the dodo, and the woolly mammoth. It aims to debut the first woolly mammoth calves by 2028. The company says its techniques have already had real-world conservation benefits. Colossal has cloned two litters of red wolves, the most critically endangered wolf species, using gentler methods developed during the dire wolf project. It said the surrogate dogs used in the process have since been adopted through the humane society.

However, Bioethicist Dr. Robert Klitzman of Columbia University warned of the unknowns, telling ABC News, "You may produce a wolf that's twice as ferocious. You may produce a super wolf, or a super rat, or a super mouse if you're playing with mice or rats, for instance, that eats everything in sight." Still, he acknowledged the potential benefit, saying, "If there's an animal that we humans killed off and there are no more such animals and they have a place to live where they can go back into their wild environment and thrive."

Going further, some experts on social media have dismissed the idea of the "de-extinction" of dire wolves. Brenen M Wynd Ph.D. (@brenenwynd), a paleontologist, remarked, "This is not a dire wolf. They cannot do de-extinction. They can just tweak living animals to have primitive features. This company is going to make designer zoo animals. They will be isolated, lonely, and a shadow of their loving relatives. Real scientists support conservation."