Colossal Biosciences CEO Ben Lamm poses with one of the wolves his company edited with dire-wolf genes.
The beginnings of a real-life “Jurassic Park” are unfolding in a high-security, undisclosed location, where three unusually large, fluffy, white wolf pups are growing up. The gene-editing startup Colossal Biosciences, which has recently raised $400 million for its de-extinction and conservation missions, announced the pups’ existence on Monday. They claim these are the first living dire wolves since the species became extinct approximately 12,500 years ago. The brothers Romulus and Remus were born in October, followed by female pup Khaleesi in January — all delivered via Caesarean section from their hound-dog surrogate mothers to avoid complications due to their large size.
Colossal asserts that their “dire wolves” are larger than grey wolves.
Colossal Biosciences
“It’s not possible to create something that is 100% genetically identical in every way to a species that used to be alive,” Beth Shapiro, Colossal’s chief science officer, stated. Scientists lack a complete genome for dire wolves, leading Shapiro to explain that they filled in gaps by extracting DNA from the most viable ancient samples — such as a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull. Their analysis determined, for the first time, that the closest living relative to the dire wolf is the gray wolf. Ultimately, Colossal targeted 20 edits across 14 genes to create pups that exhibit traits like large size, white fur, and muscular legs, which they theorize were typical of dire wolves.
Is this a dire wolf or a genetically modified grey wolf?
Colossal Biosciences
To defend his dire wolves, Lamm referenced the film “Jurassic Park,” where scientists use frog DNA to fill in the gaps of ancient dinosaur DNA sequences. “Are they dinosaurs? Or are they genetically modified organisms engineered with ancient DNA and frog DNA?” he questioned. This brings up philosophical inquiries regarding species definitions. In opposition, Vincent Lynch, a scientist who explores evolutionary history through genomics, disagrees. “It’s not a dire wolf. It’s a cloned gray wolf that they transgenically modified to resemble what we think dire wolves looked like,” Lynch revealed, emphasizing that the actual appearance of dire wolves remains uncertain. He also noted that the creatures in Jurassic Park wouldn’t be true dinosaurs either, as their behavior could be influenced by frog DNA, raising hypothetical scenarios like them hopping around or being able to change sex.
“These are gray wolves with an impressive but ultimately small number of precise changes to their genomes,” Kevin Daly, a paleogeneticist at Trinity College Dublin, explained in an email. “It might be best to consider these creatures as inspired by dire wolves.”
The wolves have access to 2,000 acres at Colossal’s facility.
Colossal Biosciences
The movie “Jurassic Park” casts a somewhat negative light on this concept, portraying dinosaurs that use their frog DNA to change sex and reproduce uncontrollably, posing threats to their human captors. Similarly, Lynch has expressed concerns about Colossal’s endeavors — not about predatory mammoths, but regarding potential unintended consequences. “Maybe it doesn’t behave like a woolly mammoth or a dire wolf,” he noted. Both wolves and elephants are social creatures that learn many of their fundamental behaviors from their parents. These “dire wolves” are unprecedented; all they possess is their genetic makeup.
