News The Return of the Dire Wolf

[Racan]

The Return of the Dire Wolf

Colossal Biosciences has genetically engineered the first dire wolf to live in over 10,000 years. Here's what that means for other extinct species.

time.com

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/04/14/the-dire-wolf-is-back

But not really: https://www.newscientist.com/articl...lf-has-not-been-brought-back-from-extinction/

 

[repoman0]

Not sure how I feel about bringing them back for novelty since they went extinct naturally (as far as I know?) but they are cute as hell.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Not sure how I feel about bringing them back for novelty since they went extinct naturally (as far as I know?) but they are cute as hell.

The things they ate don't really exist anymore, so they would only really exist in captivity/as a novelty for research. I have no issue with un-extincting animals as a rule (we'll be changing the hardware of animals before long anyhow) but natural predators are barely hanging on nowadays, large ones with nothing to eat don't have a place.

 

[IBMJunkman]

So what is next? Brontosaurus or Tyrannosaurus Rex?

 

[IronWing]

So what is next? Brontosaurus or Tyrannosaurus Rex?

Ignoring all the ethical issues, it would be awesome.

 

[brianmanahan]

i say we unextinct the flying pig

 

[GodisanAtheist]

The most interesting thing about this whole thing is that fundamentally a "species" is really a human construct that doesn't really mean anything to nature.

So making a Grey Wolf look like a Dire Wolf by monkeying with its genetics gives you something that's a little of both but not really either.

 

[brianmanahan]

Ignoring all the ethical issues, it would be awesome.

 

[Shmee]

I vote brontosaurus next.

 

[BoomerD]

I vote brontosaurus next.

AI think I'd rather see a Mastodon or Wooly Mammoth. (although one...or more of the vegetarian dinosaurs WOULD be fckn cool as hell.)

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Atmospheric O2 is much lower now than it was in Dino times.

Basically any cloned dino would just suffocate to death after being born.

Also any human time traveling back in time would be super high from all the excess O2.

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

It's been 30 years since Jurassic Park. Where is my pet dinosaur?

 

[Kaido]

 

[Kaido]

I vote brontosaurus next.

ima need a brontosaurus burger asap

 

[BoomerD]

ima need a brontosaurus burger asap

I'ma want me some ribs..

 

[sdifox]

I want to see a unicorn and the subsequent rush of humans being skewered YouTube videos.

 

[IBMJunkman]

i say we unextinct the flying pig

Done already.

Claude Moore-Brabazon – The Man Who Proved That Pigs Can Fly - Aviation Humor

The famous British retort that “pigs might fly” to any suggestion that seems ridiculous has been proved by British aviator Claude Moore-Brabazon (later First Lord Brabazon of Tara). The first historically recorded flight of a pig took place on at Leysdown in Kent (Great Britain) on November 4th...

aviationhumor.net

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

AI think I'd rather see a Mastodon or Wooly Mammoth. (although one...or more of the vegetarian dinosaurs WOULD be fckn cool as hell.)

Mastodons/mammoths or giant sloth would be great, at least their ecological niche still exists, though we'd have to control their populations manually since their predators don't exist anymore.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Atmospheric O2 is much lower now than it was in Dino times.

Basically any cloned dino would just suffocate to death after being born.

Also any human time traveling back in time would be super high from all the excess O2.

For large dinos yeah, that tracks... Anything human sized or smaller (spoiler, that was most dinosaurs) would be find though.

 

[Kaido]

I want to see a unicorn and the subsequent rush of humans being skewered YouTube videos.

 

[nakedfrog]

Bring back the smilodon!

 

[Stopsignhank]

Bring back the smilodon!

Bonus points for making me look up smilodon.

The thing is the Dire Wolves are not a made from scratch species. They took a grey wolf that is about 99% similar to a Dire wolf and manipulated it. Makes it a little hard to bring back a T-Rex that way.

 

[Kaido]

Bonus points for making me look up smilodon.

The thing is the Dire Wolves are not a made from scratch species. They took a grey wolf that is about 99% similar to a Dire wolf and manipulated it. Makes it a little hard to bring back a T-Rex that way.

iirc the chicken is a dinosaur descendent. Forget Glofish, I want a House-rex!

 

[Roger Wilco]

All birds are theropod dinosaurs. They are the only surviving dinosaurs on the planet.

 

[Racan]

TL;DW:
1. Dire wolves are probably not that closely related to gray wolves, though Colossal says that's not true, they haven't produced anything to back that up.
2. Dire wolf-like animals will never be ecologically important to our current world because they ecosystems they existed inside of do not exist anymore.
3. Collossal's goal isn't de-extinction, is creating new species to fill in niches left behind by extinct species, which is an idea worthy of debate! But it's not what you think of when you hear "de-extinction."
4. There's lots of really cool science here, which does include maybe kinda creating the frist large mammalian synthetic species.