I’ve posted her often about the follies of “de-extincting” animals like the dire wolf, dodo, and woolly mammoth, culminating in a Boston Globe op-ed on May 1. I’ve been quite critical of de-extinction claims, particularly those of Colossal Biosciences, which claims to have de-extincted the dire wolf, is on track to de-extinct woolly mammoths by 2028, and says it’s working on bringing back the dodo and the thylacine. My Globe op-ed explains four major problems with Colossal’s program. The first was this:
First, and most important, “de-extinction” is not de-extinction. The company says its claim to have de-extincted the dire wolf is legitimate because its edited pups meet some of the criteria for species “proxies” established in 2016 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. But that claim is bogus. What Colossal has made is simply a gray wolf with a handful of genetic tweaks changing its size and color.
In the case of the mammoth, what we (may eventually) have is an Asian elephant with a handful of mammoth traits. And a handful of mammoth traits does not a mammoth make. I can paint my Ford Taurus bright red and even attach the Ferrari insignia to its hood, but it’s still a Ford Taurus, albeit with a handful of Ferrari traits. The Ferrari-ness of a Ferrari permeates every feature of a Ferrari’s engineering, just as the mammoth-ness of a mammoth permeates every feature of its biology. We know from ancient DNA studies that mammoths differ from Asian elephants at 1.4 million sites along its DNA, yet Colossal plans to mammoth-ize only a tiny fraction of these. Victoria Herridge, a mammoth expert, has described Colossal’s “mammoth” as nothing more than “an elephant in a fur coat.”
I am of course not the first scientist to point this out. Several, including Tori Herridge and Adam Rutherford, have written severely critical takes on Colossal’s claims. But the mainstream media, by and large, ate up those claims. Science journals and popular-science magazines like Science and New Scientist, however, did publish trenchant criticisms.
I believe Colossal was stung by these criticisms, which I’m sure they didn’t anticipate—though they should have. The company pushed back, but eventually, in an article in New Scientist (see below and my post), quoted Colossal’s chief scientific officer, evolutionary biologist Beth Shapiro, as finally admitting that they really didn’t produce dire wolves, but grey wolves with a handful of edited genes that supposedly made the tweaked canids look more like ancient dire wolves.
Click below to see Colossal’s partial retraction, which is also archived here:
Here’s how Beth Shapiro walked back the dire wolf de-extinction claim:
Well, yes, they had said they were dire wolves. As the NYT reported on May 11:
The resulting animals [the gene-edited solves] were larger and fluffier and lighter in color than other gray wolves. The company’s chief science officer, Beth Shapiro, says this is enough to make them dire wolves, if you subscribe to the “morphological species concept,” which defines a species by its appearance. “Species concepts are human classification systems,” she told New Scientist, “and everybody can disagree and everyone can be right.”
Here’s Shapiro saying the same thing in a Bluesky post:
A statement from our Chief Science Officer, Dr. Beth Shapiro, on the dire wolf project pic.twitter.com/upl3WPSeUw
— Colossal Biosciences® (@colossal) April 10, 2025
Oy! Everybody can disagree and everyone can be right! All must have prizes! She says that Colossal chose to call them dire wolves because they look like dire wolves. That’s a highly watered-down version of the morphological species concept, one of the alternative species concepts that Allen Orr and I criticized in our book Speciation (see chapter 1 and Appendix). But the most trenchant and humorous criticism of using this concept to rescue Colossal’s claim also came from the NYT piece:
A lot of people disagreed. Calling the pups dire wolves, wrote the evolutionary biologist Rich Grenyer, is “like claiming to have brought Napoleon back from the dead by asking a short Frenchman to wear his hat.”
LOL.
In fact, we have no idea whether the three animals produced by Colossal even look a lot like the extinct dire wolf. For one thing, Colossal used mutations known in wolves and dogs (not taken from the dire wolf genome) to make the three living individuals white. We don’t know if dire wolves were white, and some think they were reddish-brown, which seems more appropriate given that they didn’t live in the Arctic. (They lived in woodlands in the tropics and temperate zone.) And, as I’ve emphasized at great length, they can’t give the de-extincted animals the brains of the original species, for we don’t know which genes control the brain differences, much less what the brain differences were. Absent that ability, no de-extincted animal can behave like its model—something crucial if you want, as Colossal claims, to restore these animals to their “original” habitat.
But where we were as of yesterday was that Colossal, via Beth Shapiro, had finally admitted that they had not produced dire wolves but genetically tweaked gray wolves (of the 20 tweaks, five came from mutations in dogs and gray wolves, not from the dire wolf genome).
Now, however, they’ve walked it back again! The tweet below shows a statement sent to New Scientist by a spokesperson at Colossal. Jacob Aron is the magazine’s news editor and he, like all of us, is now deeply confused. Colossal says that yes, they DID make dire wolves:
Colossal has sent us a statement, which we've added to the story. I don't feel the situation is any clearer…
The New Scientist article now has this “correction:
Yep, let me put that in big letters: “WITH THOSE EDITS, WE HAVE BROUGHT BACK THE DIRE WOLF”. And even using the concept of “functional de-extinction” is bogus, for they know nothing about the function (behavior, etc.) of the dire wolf. All we know is that we have three white-colored gray wolves that may have bigger heads than did gray wolves when the trio grows up. But 20 genetic tweaks is a teeny, tiny fraction of the thousands of differences between the extinct and the de-extincted creature, including the missing differences in brain structure.
The impression I get is that Colossal is now in PR chaos, stung by criticisms made by scientists and quoted in the press. They are desperate to say that they really have de-exincted animals despite the fact that all they have are three white canids, each with 15 DNA letters changed from gray wolf code to code taken from the dire wolf. Really, by any stretch of the imagination these are not members of a resurrected species. And the more Colossal opens its yap, now contradicting itself twice, the less respect I have for it.
After Shapiro admitted that Colossal hadn’t resurrected dire wolves, one of my colleagues posted this on Facebook:
I’m OK with this…I like it when scientists admit that they were wrong, or over-stated something. Although the initial press release was misleading at best, I’m glad that they clarify that these were not really Dire Wolves.
Sadly, they now say that they really are dire wolves. I’ve informed said colleague about the update, and we’ll see what he/she says.
h/t: Matthew
“Scientific method seeks to understand things as they are, while alchemy seeks to bring about a desired state of affairs. To put it another way, the primary objective of science is truth, – that of alchemy, operational success.”
-George Soros
supposedly in The Alchemy of Finance
’80s
Wiley
Colossus is digging such a deep hole for themselves that even the company’s benefactors will get the message and withdraw support simply to avoid being associated with the mess. Company spokespersons, including the Chief Science Officer, should stop parsing words and admit that they overstated the case lest they want to become a laughingstock.
I mean Colossal. My bad.
Colostomal Pseudosciences.
🙄🙄🙄
These aren’t true dire wolves. Of course they’re not. That doesn’t mean their work isn’t valuable.
Your 5th grade response suggests that your should be removed the breedinf pool.
Your rude, Roolz-violating comment means that you will be removed from the commenting pool. Did you read the Roolz? Bye!
I think too that some at Colossal are realizing that they have to keep up the false claims because their paychecks depend on a credulous press. But I also think it’s too late. Down the line Colossal will find itself to be generally known as a big scam, and they will lose the largesse of their rich benefactors. They are a scam right now, of course, but I mean that their scamminess will become generally known. Press releases about their de-extinction stunts will be later seen to be on the level of emails from Nigerian princes needing to move money.
Exactly. Their funders will depart. The sooner the better.
Really? They’re absolutely overstating their case to gain funding.
That doesn’t mean their work isn’t very useful. The fact that they HAVE been so conservative with their genetic tweaks suggests to me that they are being careful in a way that most of the magical thinkers in the scientific communitu are not.
What they actually do can be spun in different ways. Useful? At least interesting? You can have your opinion. But it’s what they say that is the problem. That is the entire point.
Great jumping Jesus, this is so ludicrous. I have more Neanderthal genes than these Gray wolves have Dire wolf genes, fercryinoutloud. Even though occasionally, especially on rough mornings, it may be hard to tell, I assure all that I am most definitely Sapiens. I think.
… Therefore I am.
Clowns! I am glad that you took the time to explain what was really happening from your subject matter expertise position for those of us who are unable to parse the details on our own. But that said, I see no reason to waste anymore time on the matter and am moving on to actually important issues that really do matter…like the survival and future of enlightenment focused universities through the competing negative forces of Social Justice priority and tRUMPism.
It will be extremely difficult to convince me to take any future publication from Colossal seriously.
Does anyone else see a parallel between the “species are ultimately a human construct” excuse and the idea that sex and race are human constructs? For that point, since everything we discuss is through the human brain, isn’t EVERYTHING a human construct and therefore there is no truth? And thus dies science…
As everyone here knows, I am not a scientist, but a similar thought occurred to me. The “a woman is whatever she says she is” statement (probably a misquote) from the FFRF fiasco and this sound and feel very similar.
In other words, it is up to the wolves themselves to decide whether they self-identify as grey or dire or both or neither or something else entirely. Perhaps grey vs. dire is one of those nonbinary things like male vs. female. Perhaps veterinary medicine will have to come up with life-saving, medically necessary procedures for those disphoric wolves who feel born in the wrong body and wish to bring their physiology more in line with their self identities.
From an animal-cruelty perspective, let’s hope that Colossal BS does not try to rescue their failing scam by using surgery. With their moronophological species concept, a facelift making the cubs look fiercer could be an option. Also limb extensions to make them bigger. Sigh.
Agree.
” Victoria Herridge, a mammoth expert, has described Colossal’s “mammoth” as nothing more than “an elephant in a fur coat.” And anyone familiar (let alone expert)
about Russian food is aware that the salad called сельдь под шубой (or “shuba”) is understood as “herring with a fur coat”. Perhaps Colossal could expand into foods, whether extinct or not.
Or they could transfer their skills to ship building in North Korea.
Oops: posted this before reading Barbara Knox’s comment.
Being a dire wolf is a spectrum.
We’ve all seen this argument again and again in another, more common, form: defining “woman.” If a male takes estrogen, gets a boob job, undergoes “bottom surgery” and/or does other things to change his appearance to resemble a female, then by golly he is a female. Via “morphological sex concept,” he’s become one for all intents and purposes. Nobody can pin down what a woman is, it varies so (JKR’s definition notwithstanding.)
Therefore, if you believe you are a woman or believe you’ve created a dire wolf, then you are and you have. Don’t let the haters try to take that away from you.
Honestly, that’s a great point.
This is like ‘queer theory’ applied to species concepts.
Unlike sex gametes which are necessarily binary, it is at least conceivable that in the distant future scientists could genetically engineer a wolf-like creature that is genetically intermediate between grey and dire wolves. Probably not this millennium.
It’s a shame. Shapiro has published a lot of great science.
In my view, she loses a massive amount of credibility over this. Everyone knows these are not dire wolves in any real sense, and they probably aren’t even functionally/ecologically equivalent.
They can almost certainly breed with grey wolves (and would prefer to, given the choice of breeding with a grey wolf or a dire wolf).
They are almost certainly distinguishable from dire wolves morphologically.
They almost certainly wouldn’t occupy the same niche as dire wolves (that niche doesn’t exist anymore since the megaherbivores are gone, and they have no parents from whom to learn dire wolf behaviour in any case)
In that video, Shapiro seems to think that as long as she says it in a super-confident, all-knowing tone, she can convince us of what we all know is untrue.
If they’re so confident that they can ‘de-extinct’ things with this method, then let them use it to ‘de-extinct’ a grizzly bear into a polar bear. Then we at least have an extant species to compare the results to, so we can see how well the method does.
So let me understand. The robins in my backyard are not really robins, and the elk in Yellowstone are not really elk? (The words robin and elk were invented to refer to entirely different species from the American versions).
They taught me in college that species were best defined in terms of ability to interbreed with fertile offspring. Could these new dire wolves and the old dire wolves do that?
I realize this is a hypothetical question that cannot be answered by actual experiment, but I’m guessing that a pretty good estimate could be made.
“They taught me in college that species were best defined in terms of ability to interbreed with fertile offspring. ”
I’m afraid they taught you only part of it. May I recommend “Speciation” By Jerry Coyne and H. Allen Orr.
Sincere apologies for the snark, but I just couldn’t help myself. Let me repay by explaining what I meant…. even if these Gray wolves could be put into a time machine to “hook up” (as the kids say) with Dire wolves and little pups come squealing out, that doesn’t mean they are the same species. Horses/donkeys, tigers/lions; not that they can’t interbreed, but absent humans, they don’t. Almost nothing is known of Dire wolf biology and the niche it filled, but it seems likely that modern Gray wolves occupy a very different niche. One rephrasing of what you’ve been told might be; “They taught me in college that species were best defined in terms of whether or not they interbreed with fertile offspring.”
See above cited reference for other concepts.
If I remember correctly, what they endorse in that book is a looser version of the biological species concept that allows for limited gene flow.
If you could take these de-extincted “dire wolves” and use them in a mate-choice experiment, they would almost certainly choose to mate with grey wolves rather than real dire wolves. I say this because they almost certainly didn’t modify any genes responsible for mate choice (because they don’t know what those behavioural genes are).
And the de-extincted “dire wolves” would almost certainly produce viable, fertile young with the grey wolves. (We don’t know what would happen when mated with actual dire wolves, but since they don’t exist anymore, it’s somewhat moot.)
The de-extincted ‘dire wolves’ are almost certainly grey wolves under the BSC.
Just for the record, it was my understanding that horse/donkey offspring are usually sterile, and that the male offspring of lion/tiger pairngs are usually sterile while female offspring are only qualifiedly fertile. Pretty clearly different species.
As for animal mate preferences, I’m a little dubious about behavior-based definitions of species.
[Cosplay Biosciences dire wolf]
Hey baby, let’s get it on.
[Dire Wolf]
Oh my, you do look tasty.
Good grief! What a bunch of lunatics.
Look in the mirror, sparky.
They should be more honest with their backers. No argument, there. But the work itself is valuable.
What dangerous nonsense! Dangerous not just because it suggests that people can arbitrarily define a species in the corporate interest of their company, but, even worse, because this is likely to embolden the uninformed ideologues of the right. If extinct species can be resurrected, neuron challenged policymakers don’t need to bother about destroying vital ecosystems and causing the extinction of ancient and valuable species.
Colossal has created a dire situation for itself.