The wonder and controversy of bringing back the dire wolf from extinction | Colossal Biosciences interview
1 min read
Summary
Colossal Biosciences made international headlines when it announced the return of the dire wolf, an animal that became extinct some 13,000 years ago.
The company’s chief aim is to bring back the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the thylacine, and its scientists have created what they claim are three of the four-legged, furry predators.
Critics have accused Colossal Biosciences of creating a new species rather than reviving one that is extinct, while others have pointed out that its dire wolves contain just a tiny percentage of the original’s DNA.
The company uses ancient DNA recovered from fossils and other remains and comparative genomics to work out what genetic variations make a dire wolf uniquely a dire wolf, before cloning the animal.
It was then born from surrogate domestic dogs in a process known as interspecies cloning.