Colossal Biosciences is still pretending it’s “de-extincted” the dire wolf

If you’ve read this site at all, you’ll know that Colossal Biosciences has pretended that it’s brought an extinct species back to life: the dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus), a carnivorous denizen of the temperate regions of North and South America. The dire wolf became extinct about 10,000 years ago, when there were already humans in the Americas.

The “dire wolf” project is only one of a number of de-extinction efforts Colossal has on tap, including bringing.back the dodo, the thylacine, and, most famously, the woolly mammoth.

None of these will work. What Colossal is doing is simply inserting a small handful of genes taken from “ancient DNA” sequences of fossilized animals into a close living relative (in the case of the dire wolf, that was the gray wolf), and then rearing this tweaked gray wolf in a surrogate mother (in this case, a domestic dog). Voilà: you get a gray wolf that, if you want fame and money, you can call a “dire wolf.”

But th0se genetic “edits” comprise a pitifully small fraction of the genes in the modern relative. In the case of the dire wolf, I wrote this:

 There were indeed 20 edits in the gray wolf genome, made in 14 genes, but five of those edits weren’t taken from the ancient DNA of the dire wolf; they were taken from mutations in dogs and gray wolves that resembled what Colossal thought dire wolves looked like. (We’re still not sure.) And among those five dog/wolf mutants were the color alleles that turned the faux wolves white.

Note that gray wolves have about 20,000 genes, so a maximum of only 0.07% of the gray wolf genome had been changed to something similar to the genome of dire wolvees, and some of those changes actually came from mutations in dogs and wolves.

For example, Colossal decided to color their dire wolves white, so they found color mutations in dogs or wolves that made these canids white, and inserted those mutations into the gray wolf genome.  It is highly unlikely that ancient dire wolves really were white; Colossal probably did this because the model “Dire Wolf” in the series “Game of Thrones” was white! A white canid on the savannah or plains would stick out like a sore thumb to its prey. I know of no temperate-zone canid or felid that’s white; the only white canids we see live in the Arctic, where they turn white in the winter.

I summarized four big problems with the dire wolf project in a Boston Globe op-ed called “De-extinction is a colossal disappointment” or go here to read the several posts I’ve written here about these misleading projects.  It’s important to realize that Colossal did not de-extinct the Dire Wolf. As I wrote in the Globe:

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.

Eventually Colossal, through its chief scientist Beth Shapiro, admitted in a New Scientist article that no, it hadn’t made dire wolves but simply slightly genetically modified gray wolves. To wit (click to read):

But, realizing that this admission undercut the “gee-whiz” aspect of “de-extinction,” Shapiro and Colossal immediately did a 180º turn and asserted that yes, they really had made dire wolves—simply because they made a gray wolf that, they assumed, would grow up looking like the ancient dire wolf (they made three of these white wolves). In other words, if they made an gray wolf that resembled in some slight degree the extinct dire wolf (and let’s ignore behavior and ecology, which are unknown for the extinct canid), then they had brought back the dire wolf.  This is, of course, arrant nonsense.

Now Colossal, in a newsletter, doubles down again, affirming that it really has brought back the dire wolf. There are two videos and enthusiastic celebration of “de-extinction”. I quote from the newsletter (I’ve bolded every reference to their claim that they do have de-extincted dire wolves):

The dire wolves are growing. Fast.

Catch up on their latest milestones and massive growth in Pupdate 002.

Colossal’s Chief Animal Officer Matt James and animal husbandry manager Paige McNickle share the newest updates on the world’s first de-extinct dire wolves. At just over 6 months old and already weighing more than 90 pounds—around 20% larger than a gray wolf of the same age—they are hitting some major milestones. The pups are headed to their first vet visit for bloodwork and CT scans, and their diet has advanced to bones, chunk meat, and organ meat, and will soon move to full carcasses to mimic natural wild feeding.

Pack dynamics are also shifting as Remus steps into the alpha role with quiet confidence, while Romulus embraces his beta energy. And with Khaleesi’s introduction on the horizon, everything could change again.

Do not miss the first major update since their de-extinction debut.

Well, of course they doubled in size: they were just pups when they were released in their Secret Pasture somewhere in America! In the video below, Colossal is also crowing that the wolves are up to 20% larger (heavier?) than gray wolves at the same age, but they don’t say that this could be due to the highly enriched diet that the three white wolves have been given. The Colossal wolves do not have to hunt, but are handed high-quality kibble, organs, and ground meat, as well as bones: Could that have made them larger?

This is disingenuous all the way home.  I have no respect for Colossal, which has allowed the “de-extinction” hype to overwhelm the science. They are shills and should be ashamed of themselves.

If you want more of this, Beth Shapiro got the most publicity possible in this day and age by touting, among other stuff, the “de-extinction” stuff on the Joe Rogan Show. Rogan!

I can’t bear to listen to all three hours of this, but perhaps a patient reader can and will report in the comments: