US biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences has claimed it produced three dire wolves, a species that has been extinct for over 10,000 years, by modifying the genome of a modern-day gray wolf using dire wolf DNA found in fossils.
Colossal released footage yesterday which it said featured "dire wolf" adolescent cubs Romulus and Remus.
According to Colossal, some of the dire wolf fossils their team utilised for DNA extraction included a 13,000-year-old dire wolf tooth and a 72,000-year-old inner ear bone.
One female puppy Khaleesi was also part of the "successfully birthed" cubs, they added.
Reuters could not independently verify Colossal's claims, nor the location and the date of footage.
Corey Bradshaw, professor of global ecology at Australia's Flinders University, was sceptical of Colossal’s claims and the actual practicality of reviving an extinct species like the dire wolf.
As Mr Bradshaw explained, it is practically impossible to modify the entire genomes of animals that have been extinct for thousands of years due to factors like DNA degradation.
"So yes, they have slightly genetically modified wolves, maybe. And that's probably the best that you're going to get. And those slight modifications seem to have been derived from retrieved dire wolf material. Does that make it a dire wolf? No. Does it make a slightly modified gray wolf? Yes," Mr Bradshaw told Reuters.
"When you claim all these great big things and then you don't provide the associated evidence, especially in something as controversial as this, that is a massive red flag," he added.
The dire wolf is a mainstay of fantasy settings in pop culture, with mentions in role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons and video games like World of Warcraft.
However, the vehicle which truly shot dire wolves to fame is the HBO series Game of Thrones, based on the works of author George RR Martin.
Mr Martin, an investor in Colossal and cultural adviser for the company, said: "Many people view dire wolves as mythical creatures that only exist in a fantasy world, but in reality, they have a rich history of contributing to the American ecosystem."
"I get the luxury to write about magic, but Ben and Colossal have created magic by bringing these majestic beasts back to our world."
Colossal Biosciences was founded in 2021, and claims it is the first biotechnology company to use CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) gene editing technology to research species de-extinction.
Colossal also said it has recently cloned critically endangered red wolves using the same technology, as well as the hybrid Colossal Woolly Mouse-mice genetically engineered to possess traits of the long-extinct wooly-mammoth.
