The resurrection of the Dire Wolf

The Dire Wolf, an ancient animal popularized from the world famous novel and film series, Game of Thrones. In the world of fantasy they are known for being loyal to their owners, willing to do anything, even die for them within seconds, both in fantasy and in reality, the Dire Wolf is a regal animal.

The Dire Wolf upbringing

This species is the first of its kind, a holotype, not having been created by evolution. Initially labeled as Canis Dirus, they originated in North America an estimated 2.6 million years ago during the Pleistocene period, commonly known as the Ice Age. Scientists categorized the Dire Wolf in the same group as the wolves we have today believing that they all shared some sort of genetical components of DNA in their structure, but in a study from 2021 researchers and scientists further evaluated DNA from the Dire Wolf and DNA from a current day wolf, in particular, the Grey Wolf, and noticed significant gaps in DNA between the Grey Wolf and the Dire Wolf, reclassifying them as their own species and renaming them to Aenocyon (EE-NO-SY-ON), Ancient Greek for “Terrible Wolf”.

The Dire Wolf had powerfully built bodies, on average they would grow up to shoulder heights of 38 inches (just over 3 ft tall) and have body lengths of 69 inches (5 ¾ ft long). Due to the landscape they consistently roamed on they developed rather short legs, but their core traits balance out this set back. Their most dominant traits consisted of dense and bulky teeth, skulls, and jaws. They developed these during the Ice Age; they not only had to survive extremely cold temperatures and kill large prey that their diet consisted of such as horses, bison, camels, and ground sloths which are now extinct due to excess hunting and climate change. Even though their domineering bodies and ways of life made them hunting machines, the Dire Wolf was not a lone wolf, Dire Wolves sticked together as they valued teamwork and unity; the average Dire Wolf pack included the alphas, the strongest wolves in the pack, the hunters who provided food for the pack, the nurturers who reared the pups, and home defense, who as the name implies, defended their territory from potential threats. Dire Wolves socialized, had designated jobs for each other, it was essentially the perfect society.

Jesus 2.0

The Dire Wolf was truly a remarkable animal, but not even they were strong enough to overcome the elements of nature. When the Ice Age came to an end about 15,000 years ago, all the dominant, subservient, and well known animals went extinct, the Woolly Mammoth, the Saber Tooth Tiger, all the fundamental animals. Due to the Dire Wolf selection of food ceasing to exist because of the end of the Ice Age, the Dire Wolves began to follow that trend. As the ice caps melted, animals started vanishing in the blink of an eye, eventually, the Dire Wolf succumbed to the rapid climate change, starving their way to extinction. After 2.4 million years of conquering the world around them, they went extinct, only leaving the history of their existence behind. It seemed like the end for the Dire Wolf. Until October 2024.

On that day, scientists took components of DNA from Dire Wolves and incorporated them into the DNA of two modern Grey Wolves who were still in utero, not fully recreating the Dire Wolf, but making sure when the wolves are born, they will have several dire wolf features such as their thick fur and large bodies. With the help of a company called Colossal Biosciences, whose main objective is to attempt to bring back popular extinct species such as the Tasmanian Tigers, Dodo Birds, White Rhinos, and several others. Their first and “successful” project, the Dire Wolf, which they started engineering in 2021 has come to see the light of day. Two Dire Wolf pups, named Remus and Romulus came to be in October 2024, and a female named Khaleesi was later born January of 2025, all named after the Dire Wolves in Game of Thrones who are associates of the Stark family. At the small age of six months, Romulus and Remus already weigh an astonishing 80 lbs and reach measurements of 4 ft long; to add on, all three pups share the same pure white fur as the Dire Wolves in Game of Thrones share. People who have heard about this have expressed feelings of rejoice and excitement, an animal people engaged in fantasy have raved about for years is finally being brought to life! But, do the alleged positives of these creations outweigh the destructible negatives that come with this?

Is this for the better or worse of our future?

Dire Wolves have been extinct for about 13,00 years, experts have expressed their uneasiness about the restoration of this extinct species, what good would it do us, what good would it do for the wolves themselves? Scientists argue that bringing back extinct species to our present day world would solve all our ecological problems. The animals can help regulate and restore the environment, help scientists further extend their research, and many more other things. While these pros are possible when looking at this project are substantial and vital, the cons that come with doing this are simply too much for us as humans to bear. This experiment makes the Dire Wolf the first ever species to be a de-extinct species in history, or is it?

No, the Dire Wolf has not been brought back from extinction. The truth is scientists weren't able to fully recreate the Dire Wolf, as previously mentioned, scientists only got DNA from Dire Wolf remains and incorporated them into Grey Wolf embryos. Scientists essentially created modified Grey Wolves. The fact that the scientists who engineered this project for four years couldn't fully recreate the genetic components of a Dire Wolf and instead incorporated the DNA from a Dire Wolf into growing Grey Wolf embryos is disgraceful. Rich people, and those obsessed with bringing their greatest fantasies into reality truly don’t understand the dangers of that process, while they’re on one side of the world celebrating, on the other side of the spectrum, the non-rich are stressed and worried about the potential consequences that will fall upon them to fix.

The consequences of bringing fantasy into reality

Nobody asked for the de-extinction of the Dire Wolf, only the rich and people who love fantasy do, their unrealistic wants are going to cost us the safety of our future. The people who want the re-extinction of Dire Wolves are oblivious to the fact that this animal who had gone extinct about 12,000 years ago will not have the capability to adapt to our present day, industrial world. As the Ice Age ended, the Earth got significantly warmer, Earth is now 11 degrees on average warmer than it was 15,000 years ago when the original and organic Dire Wolves roamed North America. Bringing them back is not only unethical, but outright cruel. The Earth is not and won't be in for a long time suitable for a creature of the cold such as the Dire Wolf to live, let alone survive in. People are joyous about bringing the Dire Wolf back, they don't see the issues and the ethical controversy that could come with executing this project.

Imagine that we do somehow fully recreate the Dire Wolf and their attributes, how would an animal that was around during the prehistoric times be able to maneuver their way around their new home which includes scarce forestry, industrial buildings, unmanaged waste, and their new threat, humans? Dire Wolfs do not have the traits to survive in this modern world, for example, The average Dire Wolf weighed between 125 lbs to 175 lbs, compared to our modern wolves, for example, Grey Wolves, specifically males that could only weigh up to 70 lbs to 140 lbs. The Grey Wolf is built for being elusive, quick split second moves that they developed while living in our modern world, meanwhile, Dire Wolves were built to scavenge and saunter around the freezing cold snow and glaciers. The Dire wolf lived their lives when North America was on average 46 degrees farenheit, as mentioned before the Earth has now become 11 degrees farenheit warmer caused by global warming, their way of living simply will not be ever adequate to survive compared to the way present day wolves live. There is also the possibility that the Dire Wolf could potentially bring diseases that we have never encountered, although the Dire Wolf potentially bringing back ancient diseases could help scientists further extend their research into diseases and make advancements in medicine and overall knowledge, they will easily disrupt the current ecosystem. While the scientists are in their lab conducting research on these diseases, animals that we depend on such as our chickens, cows, pigs, sheep, horses, and our pets, will be dying because of the ancient disease the the Dire Wolf has brought with them, the balance in the ecosystem will immediately be thrown off, the animals who have adapted to the destruction of humans will now face to adapt to the destruction of the Dire Wolf, and where does that leave us? The adaptation process is a grueling one, some taking years to adapt to the changes around them, some never adapt at all. While the Dire Wolf adjusts to their new environment, our native animals will have to adjust as well, that includes building immunity to the Dire Wolves diseases and way of living, and that process can take decades. As animals are potentially dying left and right just from the diseases the Dire Wolf would potentially bring to them and being preyed upon by them, we will lose our resources that derive from them, their meat, hide, emotional support, everything, and we’ll start to die out as a possible result of this.

This is only a hypothetical possibility. While scientists can’t bring back the Dire Wolf, they made genetically modified Grey Wolves that have Dire Wolf traits which are equally as terrifying and destructible. Genetically modifying modern day wolves into having prehistoric wolf traits is hazardous not only for us humans, for our native animals, but for the genetically modified wolves themselves. Nobody accounts for the well being of wolves and how they will survive, just imagine if you, a person in the 21st century, had traits of when our own species first appeared? According to an article written by the Australian Museum, the first recorded humans reportedly had bigger brains, and smaller teeth. How would we survive having bigger brains in our small present day skulls and smaller teeth to eat our very processed diet? If you can’t imagine having your traits mixed with the ancient humans, how are the genetically modified Grey Wolves going to live? Remus, Romulus, and Khaleesi, are still very young, we don’t know if they will or will not have any health issues as they grow older, we don't know if they will change the world for the better by helping restore nature to its original balance, or change the world for the worse by throwing nature off its course. We don’t know if Khaleesi, Romulus, and Remus, will live their lives without any health issues or having to worry about finding suitable places for them to live, we don’t know if they will grow up to have gigantic bodies and a small heads, or have big teeth and small mouths that prevent them from living a normal wolf life. We don't know.

Don’t be fooled by the unreal

It is still too early to say anything about how the Dire Wolf will continue to live and the impact they will have on our world, but one thing we can say is that this entire project wouldn’t have came to be if it weren’t for Game of Thrones. People are blindly lead by what they see on TV, wether is Real Housewives of Atlanta, Rick and Morty, or Attack on Titan, we all in some way incorporate fantasy into our reality. Some do it as a way to cope with the harsh ways of the world, others do it just for entertainment, we all have our reasons, but we let these ideas of fantasy influence our life decisions. A show such as Game of Thrones is based off of the impossible, magic, talking animals, powerful kingdoms, all of this is everything but reality, and people desire to live such impossible lives portrayed on a rectangular screen. It is very easy to say “Let’s bring back the Dire Wolf! They’re a cool animal and it would be fun to have them in real life!” But no one ever accounts for the fact that bringing back the Dire Wolf is expensive, and simply a reach, they also don’t care about the welfare of the wolves if they were to fully come back. As previously stated, the names of the genetically modified Grey Wolves, Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi, are the names of the Dire Wolves in Game of Thrones, are the scientists even taking this seriously? They spent four years engineering the DNA of the Dire Wolf into Grey Wolves just to name them after wolves from a TV series, this shows that not even the professionals, the people who were depend on for information and enlightenment are just as delusional as us common folk are. These scientists and billionaire companies, Colossal Biosciences in particular, only want to partake in de-extinction for their own entertainment, they don’t realize that what they are doing is going to leave catastrophic and unforeseen consequences that will be put upon us impoverished people to deal with. While the rich are on their high horses, thinking to themselves, “Oh! Another failed experiment, we’ll try again next time” The middle class, lower class, and impoverished will be forced to take care of said failed experiment, as the Dire Wolves will most likely violently disrupt the course of life, killing all our animals, giving us diseases that we might not have the technology to create a cure for, and eradicating our species, more specifically the lower class to impoverished, the rich will be high in the clouds looking down at us suffering due to their inconsiderate decisions.

Yes, it would be cool to have an animal popular in our favorite shows be brought into real life, but that thought should stay as a thought and never should become a reality. As of right now, 2025, I feel as though we do not have the resources nor the technology and knowledge to figure out a way to safely de-extinct the Dire Wolf, in my opinion, the genetically modified wolves should be the last experiment they do concerning de-extinction, their entire mission is not motivated by the “heroic” actions of the de-extinction of animals and trying to bring earth back to it’s pure origins, it is fueled by fantasy and the want to make the most down right irrational, unrealistic, foolish, and impossible things into real life just as a source of entertainment.

Fantasy, the greatest thing ever made by the strong, yet feeble human mind, will it be the cause of our inevitable demise?