#Colossal

[ivytherium]

To anyone who follows me, I don't care about nor trust Colossal Biosciences anymore (The people behind the "Wooly Mice"). They have proven themselves to be headline-chasing grifters after this latest stunt. They are claiming to have de-extincted *Aenocyon dirus*, aka the Dire Wolf, by editing just 20 genes from the the DNA of a Grey Wolf (*Canis lupus*) to make this thing:

If it wasn't clear from their scientific names, Grey Wolves and Dire Wolves aren't remotely related to one another aside from being Canids, despite what pop culture like Game of Thrones would have you believe. If they did look like each other, it would have had to be via convergent evolution, as they only shared a common ancestor over 5 million years ago.

This distinction, however, isn't found in the publicized articles about this so-called resurrected Dire Wolf and makes their claim that they brought the Dire Wolf back by simply editing *20* genes from the genome of a Grey Wolf laughable. A Dire Wolf would have shared more in common genetically with a Maned Wolf (*Chrysocyon brachyurus*) or Bush Dog (*Speothos venaticus*) than it would with a Grey Wolf.

Bottom line, don't fall for whatever this company is trying to tell you. If the Dire Wolf were to be brought back, it wouldn't be via something like this, and certainly wouldn't *look* like this. If you want an idea as to how a real Dire Wolf would look like in life, here is some fantastic paleoart by artist Mauricio Antón:

Addendum: I seem to have partially miscalculated Dire Wolf genetics. They were not closer to Maned Wolves or Bush Dogs, but they were still not closely related to Grey Wolves. They were basal members of Canini, related to canids like Jackals (genus Lupulella) but distinct from them. I am sorry for this misinformation in my attempt to correct other misinformation. My main point, however, is still correct.

[xanderomeister]

This is pretty much the new crap with the "dire wolves"

[sixth-extinction]

Creating the dire wolves called for making just 20 edits in 14 genes in the common gray wolf, but those tweaks gave rise to a host of differences, including Romulus’ and Remus’ white coat, larger size, more powerful shoulders, wider head, larger teeth and jaws, more-muscular legs, and characteristic vocalizations, especially howling and whining.

Colossal’s dire wolf work took a less invasive approach, isolating cells not from a tissue sample of a donor gray wolf, but from its blood. The cells they selected are known as endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), which form the lining of blood vessels. The scientists then rewrote the 14 key genes in the cell’s nucleus to match those of the dire wolf; no ancient dire wolf DNA was actually spliced into the gray wolf’s genome. The edited nucleus was then transferred into a denucleated ovum. The scientists produced 45 engineered ova, which were allowed to develop into embryos in the lab. Those embryos were inserted into the wombs of two surrogate hound mixes, chosen mostly for their overall health and, not insignificantly, their size, since they’d be giving birth to large pups. In each mother, one embryo took hold and proceeded to a full-term pregnancy. (No dogs experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth.) On Oct. 1, 2024, the surrogates birthed Romulus and Remus. A few months later, Colossal repeated the procedure with another clutch of embryos and another surrogate mother. On Jan. 30, 2025, that dog gave birth to Khaleesi.

These sound more like transgenic wolves to me than true dire wolves, but it’s super interesting nonetheless.

[canisvesperus]

Fuck Colossal Biosciences. Dire wolves are one of the worst candidates for “de-extinction”, and these animals are not dire wolves by any legitimate genetic basis— transgenic grey wolves are transgenic grey wolves. This is theater, pure spectacle and clout chasing, not conservation. Our threatened native species deserve all the time, money, and labor being wasted on deceptive publicity stunts. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

[bestofgrrm]

Welcome to Direwolf Day. I’ve been holding my tongue for months now, sworn to silence yet dying to tell the world. Pardon my shouting, but… THE DIREWOLF IS BACK. Extinct for more than ten thousand years, but extinct no longer, thanks to Ben Lamm, George Church, Beth Shapiro, and the rest of their team of mad scientists at Colossal, the world leader in the science of “de-extinction.” I met them all in February, in… well, that would be telling. And I met Romulus and Remus too. Here’s me and Romulus. (Or maybe Remus. They’re twins, and hard to tell apart.

- Grrm, NotaBlog, April 8 2025

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Btw this is what a real dire wolf looks like:

(Source)

Not this - this is genetically modified hybrid made specifically to look like the wolf dogs that played the “dire wolves” in Game of Thrones:

Don’t fall for a multi million dollar company’s marketing hype - this isn’t science. This is the wealthy playing around with genetics while real grey wolves face brutal hunting seasons and their sanctuaries like Yellowstone get defunded.

[thingsorganizedneatly]

Flower Mandalas by Kathy Klein

via Colossal

[artghutry]

SOVIET BUS STOPS

Architectural forms

Photographed by Christopher Herwing

#COLOSSAL #Christopher Herwing #artist photography #Soviet Bus Stops #soviet art #art ghutry #xpuigc

[archiveofaffinities]

Tamura Electric Works, Tokyo Japan, 1970s, Photograph: Harald Sund

[gingerbredman1989]

Colossal Collegiate Bodybuilder Relaxing.

Civitai

[mammoth-clangen]

Honestly cloning has limited usefulness in conservation, let alone deextinctuon. If a population has bottlenecked or fallen below the carrying threshold then cloning what's left doesn't functionally help. Even cloning a recently deceased individual might not help, depending on a lot of factors. It's annoying that it's treated like this big help to conservation when frankly well managed breeding programs are a much bigger help than cloning will ever be.

Oh don't get me wrong

There's certainly room for thoughtful, ethical cloning use in conservation!

A really great example is in Black-footed ferrets just last year. They're critically endangered partially due to reduced fertility from inbreeding depression.

Two jills (female ferrets) were cloned from historic samples of a ferret called Willa, who was captured and never reproduced in her lifetime. Because of this, reintroducing her genes helped bolster the genetic diversity of the population!

This is one of the twin ferret sisters, Antonia.

Better yet, the above ferret then went on to give birth to healthy kits! They're super cute, and being 100% ferret made the old-fashioned way (not clones), shouldn't have any of the issues that clones sometimes do.

Behold them!

But what Colossal is doing is not cloning!

I can't stress that enough! It's genetic modification, but cloning means creating a complete replicate of another animal.

Even using genetic modification has many potential applications in conservation; coding endangered species with resistance to population-devastating diseases, or using it to recode lost genetic diversity, as a few examples. But the way Colossal is using it is not to preserve endangered species. They have created, depending on your opinion:

1) a GMO grey wolf (or wolfdog, given where the white-coat gene came from).

2) a completely new transgenic species.

They claim to be filling the niche left by an extinct species, but this is honestly BS. They haven't made an extinct species, nor an endangered one. It couldn't even fill the niche if that niche was still open.

"The T. rex in this Jurassic Park is just a frog..."

-paraphrased from sparrowlucero

[ariesalpinesavi]

[tabletopresources]

Forest Wurm By Tira-Owl

Check out Tabletop Gaming Resources for more art, tips, and tools for your game!

[thepastisalreadywritten]

In tandem with genetically engineering its three dire wolves, Colossal has cloned two litters of red wolves, the most critically endangered wolf in the world, as part of its overall goal of pairing conservation efforts with its de-extinction efforts.

The company, founded in 2021, has previously announced that it plans to bring back the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, and the dodo bird from extinction.

It says that its work on the dire wolf is a proof of technology.

“This massive milestone is the first of many coming examples demonstrating that our end-to-end de-extinction technology stack works,” says Lamm, who co-founded Colossal with Harvard geneticist Dr. George Church.

Colossal — which claims that it has now set the record for the most-ever genetic edits in a living species — says it plans to restore the dire wolf as a viable species and secure ecological preserves for it on Indigenous land in North America.

📹 AMAZlNGNATURE / X

🐺🥹🔊

[rivai-hana]

😂

[joeythephatone]

Jason Sudeikis as Oscar in "Colossal"