#obvs the 2003 ibex was a while ago and things have progressed a bit

[there-i-changed-it]

Hey! Now I can bring up something relevant!

There’s a chapter in Christopher J Preston’s book The Synthetic Age (2018) on this sort of thing and how if they succeed in their goal they’ll create orphaned mutants with no place in the world (for example, he brings up the question of what animals would constitute a resurrected Wooly Mammoth’s herd, and who would teach it to forage in its natural habitat, since modern elephants don’t live in cold climates) but also most of the time the animals they try and “resurrect” are aborted failures or die in horrible ways immediately after birth due to congenital defects (page 95, he details that “an ‘extinct’ Pyrenean Ibex was born using [somatic cell nuclear transfer] to a goat mother in 2003. Unfortunately, the resurrected ibex survived only ten minutes outside the womb because of the presence of major defects in its lungs”). This is all super ethically messy (restoring habitats and ecosystems vs animal suffering vs human control over nature vs which species should you be trying to save?), and while I won’t get super deep into it, when you see these headlines you should always ask “why?”. These companies are interested in exploring restoration and “resurrection” (whether that means genomic chimeras, ‘editing’ existing genomes, or the aforementioned somatic cell nuclear transfer with a whole genome), but they are also driven by grant money and consumer engagement. Obv Colossal has picked their bet: make things people think are cool and maybe that will bring in money. They’ll slam through to get any results, consequences be damned, if it means they turn a profit. As the poster above says, these guys were suspicious from the start because of the wooly mammoth mouse (they got the gene to work, which was cool, but the headlines were wack). However, hype carries things away, and it’s always worth looking into something like this a little deeper to see what has actually been done.

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.