🌅 Today’s stat: 72,000 years

SOURCE

Colossal Biosciences

WHAT TO KNOW

• Colossal Biosciences says it used DNA fragments from a 13,000-year-old dire wolf tooth and a 72,000 year-old dire wolf skull to resurrect the extinct canid, sharing three new pups with the world: Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi. Ancient dire wolves were up to 25% larger than today’s modern gray wolves, weighing as much as 150 pounds with thicker fur and a much stronger jaw. The species is believed to have gone extinct at least 12,500 years ago.

WHY IT MATTERS

• The company claims to have pulled off the world’s first instance of de-extinction, however, scientists and other experts say that isn’t quite what happened. In reality, the company genetically engineered modern-day gray wolves and changed their genome in a way that makes them somewhat resemble dire wolves (one scientist described them as “optimistically 1/100,000th dire wolf”), essentially creating a wolf clone with bits of dire wolf DNA. The company’s work hasn’t been published in a peer-reviewed journal or shared as a preprint (nor is it even the first example of an extinct species being brought back to life).

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Colossal says its goal is to restore extinct species like dire wolves and other “charismatic megafauna,” including mammoths, dodos, and Tasmanian tigers. However, other scientists say claims of reviving lost species should be tempered, describing the company’s work as an “incremental step” toward de-extinction at best, while acknowledging the techniques indeed have interesting conservation potential.