The De-Extinction ANIMAL is back after 13,000 Years

1. An animal that went extinct 13,000 years ago, the Direwolf today it lives with us once more, because of genetic engineering. Or so it is claimed by the Colossal Biosciences Company. This company also claims that in the future, it will de-extinct many such popular extinct animal species. Like the Tasmanian tiger, which once lived in Australia. Dodo bird, which went extinct in Mauritius in the 1600s. Or the woolly mammoth, they were huge in size, related to elephants, and lived in snowy region.

It went extinct 4,000 years ago. According to this company, the dire wolf is their first successful attempt to de-extinct an animal. It is a species of wolf made popular by the Game of Thrones TV show. Many of the main characters of this show had pet Direwolves. Inspired by this, the two Direwolves whose births were facilitated by this company were named Romulus and Remus. This project was carried out at a secret location in America. Here, in this video, you can see them sitting in the sun, having fun in a barn.

It went extinct 4,000 years ago. According to this company, the dire wolf is their first successful attempt to de-extinct an animal. It is a species of wolf made popular by the Game of Thrones TV show. Many of the main characters of this show had pet Direwolves. Inspired by this, the two Direwolves whose births were facilitated by this company were named Romulus and Remus. This project was carried out at a secret location in America. Here, in this picture you can see them sitting in the sun, having fun in a barn.

They are 5 months old. These cubs do not know how unique they are. They wereo this company, the dire wolf is their first successful attempt to de-extinct an animal. It is a species of wolf made popular by the Game of Thrones TV show. Many of the main characters of this show had pet Direwolves. Inspired by this, the two Direwolves whose births were facilitated by this company were named Romulus and Remus. This project was carried out at a secret location in America. Here, in this video, you can see them sitting in the sun, having fun in a barn.







It went extinct 4,000 years ago. According to this company, the dire wolf is their first successful attempt to de-extinct an animal. It is a species of wolf made popular by the Game of Thrones TV show. Many of the main characters of this show had pet Direwolves. Inspired by this, the two Direwolves whose births were facilitated by this company were named Romulus and Remus. This project was carried out at a secret location in America. Here, in this picture you can see them sitting in the sun, having fun in a barn.





born in an era when no other member of their species is alive. Along with them, there's a third Direwolf, a female, the company named it Khaleesi. Everything seems so amazing when you first hear about it. But many people have raised questions here. They've refuted the claims of this company. Many experts claim that Direwolves have not been resurrected. Instead, it's a genetically engineered version of a common wolf. How was this done?

let's try to understand this topic properly. It was 1854. In America, near the Ohio River, for the first time, humans had found fossils of the Direwolf. In 1858, American scientist Joseph Leidy said that this animal should be classified under the Canis genus. And from there, it was given the scientific name Canis Dirus. Translating to a scary dog. All dog-like species are classified under the Canis genus. Like dogs, wolves or deers. Then in 1918, a scientist John Merriam was studying the fossils of dire wolves in Los Angeles' Tar Pits.

He said that this animal was vastly different. And should not be classified under the Canis family. That it needed a different genus. But at that time, his statement was thought to be incorrect and ignored. After that, for the next 100 years, people continues to believed that the Direwolves were close relatives of grey wolves and modern wolves. But in 2021, a study was published in the Nature Journal which completely changed the human understanding of the Direwolves. By studying the fossils in detail it was found that

the Direwolves are different from the modern wolves. About 5.7 million years ago, they separated from the other species of wolves. This same study also found that the Direwolves lived in North America for a long time along with the grey wolves and coyotes. But there was no interbreeding among them. No genes were mixed. And then, about 13,000 years ago, all Direwolves went extinct from the earth. But the grey wolves remained. Why did this happen? No one knows the exact reason. But it is believed that

the Direwolves hunted bigger animals. Their preys became extinct. Consequently, they became extinct too. Another theory of their extinction is claimed to be that they couldn't interbreed like the grey wolves. And so they couldn't adapt to the environment. If you compare them to modern wolves, the Direwolves were about 25% bigger in size. In Game of Thrones, the dire wolves are shown to be even bigger. As big as a lion. But in reality, they weren't that big. Although it's true that their heads were longer and wider than other wolves'

And their jaws were much more powerful. They had light fur that was nearly white. And like the modern wolves, they lived in groups too. Making it easier to hunt other animals. Now comes the question about de-extinction. How did this company de-extinct a Direwolf? De-extinction is the opposite of extinction. To bring something back from extinction. Broadly speaking, there are three ways to do it. The first way is Back Breeding. In this, a living relative of an extinct species is selected, ensuring that it carries the traits of the extinct species

It is then bred for generations, trying to get the lost characteristics back into the one animal. A real-life example of this is the Quagga Project. Look at this photo. This animal is called Quagga. It looks like a zebra from the front, but its stripes end at its midsection, and its rear looks like a horse. It was a wild animal found in South Africa which was declared to be extinct in 1883 caused by hunting. People hunted it into extinction. This photo you are seeing on the screen is the only photo of the Quagga ever taken in history

It was taken before it went extinct. But then in 1987, some scientists started the Quagga Project. To de-extinct it. For this, they found such zebras which had fewer stripes on their bodies. Especially in the rear. And then they carried out selective breeding. The foals born in every generation were bred with the Zebras with fewer stripes. And of those foals born, the one with the fewest stripes was chosen. Using this method, 20 years and 3 generations later, these Zebras were born. They looked exactly like Quaggas.

You can see the current status of the Quagga project on their website. This photo shows the first generation in 1987. This zebra merely had fewer stripes. And by 2022, this zebra in the photo looks almost like a Quagga. This process is known as Back Breeding. So the question arises, does looking like a Quagga really make it a Quagga? There must be some traits in the real Quagga that we don't know about. This is the major disadvantage of Back Breeding. We may get an animal to look like an extinct species,

but it won't necessarily have the same genes as that of the extinct species. The second technique of de-extinction is Cloning. A precise genetic copy of an animal can be synthesised with cloning. But to do this, we'd need a healthy cell of the extinct species. Because they way it works is that the nucleus of the cell is removed and put into the eggs of a closely related living species. It might sound very difficult, It is. That's why it was only in 1996 that an animal was cloned. Dolly the sheep.

You must have read about it in school. "Her name is Dolly." "7 months old." "She may not be the monster imagined in a science fiction fantasy." "Yet the cuddly Finn Dorset lamb may represent" "a major landmark in the history of genetic engineering." But cloning was used for de-extinction for the first time in 2000. There's a species of Spanish goat named Bocardo which was highly endangered. 6th January 2000, the last goat of this species died. And this animal went extinct. But a year before its death,

scientists had harvested some samples of its cells. These cell samples were stored safely in cold storage. And so cloning could be attempted. They removed the nuclei of the cells and put them in the eggs of 57 different goats. The success rate isn't very high. Because only 7 of the goats could be pregnant. And 6 of them had miscarriages. Only one goat gave birth to a female kid. But this kid was born with a lung defect. And died within 10 minutes of birth. That's why this Bucardo goat is said to be

an animal that went extinct twice. And this can tell you how difficult it is to clone something. Now, let's know about the third process of de-extinction. Genetic Engineering. It is believed to be the newest and the most promising method. In this, scientists use fossils. The DNA of dead animals can be preserved for thousands of years in the form of fossils This is a natural way of data preservation. But in our modern world, do you know your every click on the internet can become a digital fossil.

the third process of De-Extinction. For this, scientists extract the DNA of extinct animals from their fossils. And study it. To identify the exact genes of the extinct animal. And then they compare those genes with that of its closest living relatives. After that, they use DNA editing to alter the genes of the living relative's cells to recreate the genes of the extinct species.

With these altered cells, the rest of the process is the same as in cloning. It is introduced in a living animal and an offspring of the animal is born with new cells and new genes. There are two major challenges in this process. First, getting the correct and complete DNA of the extinct animal is extremely challenging. When thousands of years old fossils are unearthed, they are found in damaged conditions. And even the DNA in them might be broken. And the second challenge is that when the DNA is edited,

changing millions of DNA isn't easy. In 2021, a billionaire in America, Ben Lamm, and a renowned scientist in the field of genetics, George Church, founded a company together called Colossal Biosciences. This company had only one goal. De-extinction. And their flagship project is to bring back the woolly mammoth, that has been extinct for 4,000 years. "Waiting for the right moment. they want to bring back the Tasmanian tiger and the Dodo bird too.

But there are unending challenges when it comes to these three animals. The closest living relative of the woolly mammoths is the Asian elephant. But an Asian elephant's pregnancy is 22 months long. The longest of any mammal. What's special about the Tasmanian tiger is that it was a marsupial. Like kangaroos, they had pouches. To give birth to their offsprings, scientists have to create an artificial womb. That would be challenging. And the challenge with bringing back the Dodo bird is that it laid eggs like the other birds

These eggs make it difficult to manipulate their genes. In 2023, this company held a meeting where everyone was present and discussing about which animal would be the best candidate to test the process of de-extinction. And this is when the Direwolf was suggested. Compared to other animals like sheep, goats, and rats, Direwolves are quite famous in pop culture. Apart from Game of Thrones, they are mentioned in the World of Warcraft video games, and even in the Dungeons and Dragons video games. That's why they chose this animal, assuming that

they would get more publicity if they choose the Direwolf. In the summer of 2023, the team of Colossal Biosciences began working on the Direwolf project. The first challenge was to find high-quality DNA of the Direwolf. Two most promising samples were found for this. One of the fossils was found in Ohio's Sheriden Cave. A piece of Direwolf's tooth. It was 13,000 years old. And the second fossil was found in Idaho, at the American Falls Reservoir, a skull. A 70,000-year-old skull of a Direwolf. They began the gene sequencing using these two fossils.

They found a wealth of data from these two samples, it was 500 times that of the existing data. It's not like they discovered the complete genome of the Direwolf. They found only parts of its DNA. The exact percentage of the DNA they could gather from the fossils has not been revealed publicly. The next step was to take the Direwolf's DNA and compare it to grey wolf's DNA. According to this company, the grey wolf is the closest living relative of the Direwolf. The DNA of these two animals is 99.5% similar.

This makes the process easier. Because we can check how a particular gene contributes to the grey wolf's biology, and then expect the same gene to work the same way in the Direwolf too. The third step is to decide which genes to be altered in the grey wolf's DNA for it to become like the Direwolf. They chose to alter 14 specific genes. These genes focused on external features. Like, the size of the wolf, the size of its head, the colour of its fur, and how fluffy it'd be. Fourth, they used gene editing

to make these changes in the grey wolves' genes. And the technology they used here is called the CRISPR-Cas9 technology. The exact way CRISPR gene editing works is quite a complex topic.This process is also known as Genetic Scissors. Because, in a way, it works as a scissor. For this CRISPR-Cas9 technology in 2020, French scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier, and American scientist Jennifer Doudna were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This company used gene editing,

to make 20 alterations in 14 genes of the grey wolf and grew thousands of the modified cells in a lab. The next step was taken in mid-2024. The nuclei of the cells with the edited genes were extracted. On the other hand, they took egg cells from dogs and removed the nuclei of those egg cells as well. And the extracted nuclei were put in these egg cells. 45 embryos were planted in two dogs. Only two of these embryos developed. Then on 1st October, 2024, and a C-section was performed on these pregnant dogs.

And thus, these puppies were born. Initially, they wanted to wait for the natural birth, but they were worried because the Direwolves are much bigger. The cubs could grow to be bigger than normal puppies. That wouldn't be healthy for the pregnant dog. With this, the two Direwolves were born on the same day. Their were named Romulus and Remus. They were the mythological founders of Rome. During the first days of their lives, the direwolf puppies drank the milk of their surrogate mothers. The dogs who gave birth to them

But this milk wasn't enough to meet their metabolic needs. Soon afterwards, they were bottle-fed too. Technically, these two direwolf cubs are clones of each other. Because they carry the exact same DNA in their cells. But the interesting part is that despite being twins, they were behaving differently since their birth. Remus was braver. And Romulus was a little shy. It's not surprising. When people hear the word 'clone,' they imagine two individuals who would look exactly the same, and behave exactly the same.

But in reality, it isn't so. Even if your DNA is the same, your behaviour can be different, your personality can be different. Because a lot of the things depend on the environment. The environment you grow up in. Apart from this, even the same genes can influence the individuals differently. They can reflect different traits. It is next to impossible to predict which gene would turn on and which would turn off. This is true for the extinct animals too. The way an animal is, fundamentally, doesn't depend only on its DNA.

It depends on its mother and other caregivers, the environment around it, the quality of its food and water, and even the microbes in its body. Many factors have to come together to make an individual organism an organism. But anyway, coming back to our story, on 30th January 2025, Khaleesi was born. A female direwolf. Ben Lamm, one of the founder of this company said that these three won't be allowed to breed. Their company will facilitate the birth of only about 3-5 more such animals through genetic engineering.

They will be kept in their preserves. And protected with a 10-foot high security fence and drone surveillance. And only a few billionaires would be permitted to meet them occasionally. Finally, for once, think about this from the perspective of these Direwolves. They are at an age when their parents are supposed to teach them to hunt. But obviously, they don't have parents. They haven't even seen other wolves. Their entire life will be spent in a highly controlled environment. Vastly different from the lifestyle of the extinct Direwolf.

10-20 years later, once these wolves die, quite possible, just like the Buccado, it will become the second species, to go extinct the second time. Scientifically, it is definitely a significant achievement. But the flak and criticism it is drawing is also justified. Because the true meaning of de-extinction isn't to merely bring an animal back to life to be a showpiece, to take a photo with it, or for entertainment. It means to give it a place on our Earth and its ecology once again. To give it the same ecological role

that it had at one time. Like the woolly mammoth used to help maintain the Siberian grasslands. Back then, they were an integral part of that ecosystem. The real question is, if an animal like the Direwolf is brought back to life, does it have a place in our ecological balance? Those who support it say that it was a large hunting animal. And today, there is a shortage of hunting animals. So by bringing back the Direwolf, and letting it live in our jungles, it will restore the balance. Especially in America, where it used to live

But when a private company spends millions to bring back this animal, do you think that it did it to restore the balance in ecology? Or for its own benefit? The higher possibility is keeping it in a zoo as a showpiece. There, it will be merely a source of entertainment for people. There's also the concern that Direwolf had gone extinct naturally. Without a significant human intervention. The climate change 10,000 years ago, the natural changes in the ecosystem, had led to the extinction of this animal.

So, is there truly a place for it in today's ecosystem? The animals that were hunted by the Direwolves, have gone extinct too. If they are left in the jungles again, they will hunt those animals that are hunted by the grey wolves and other wolves. There will be competition between these species of wolves for the food source, and perhaps, the events that happened 13,000 years ago will be repeated. Leading to the extinction of the Direwolf. Everything I said was assuming that they actually are Direwolves.

But are they truly Direwolves? The answer to this is probably no. They are a genetically engineered version of the grey wolf. A grey wolf with 14 altered genes. But how many genes are there in a genome? This number ranges in millions. Not even 0.0001% of the genes have been changed here. If a grey wolf and a Direwolf share 99.5% of their DNA, then the new Direwolf, will also share only 99.5% of its DNA with the older extinct Direwolf. Because the simple fact is that if we want to bring back the same extinct animal

we would need to know its entire genome. And we will have to make the same thousands of alterations to the genes to bring back the same exact animal. If that's what we want to do. Because think about it, 98.8% of the DNA of chimpanzees and humans matches. If someday some scientists claim that they made 14 changes in a chimpanzee's DNA to make them look more human-like. Would that truly make it a human? Not at all. Here, we need to use our technology and money on those species that are still alive today,

but are on the verge of extinction. We should focus on saving those species that already have a place in today's ecosystem, on today's earth. Like the Northern White Rhinos. In 1970, more than 500 Northern White Rhinos used to be found in Africa. But today, there are only two left. Only two. They have become old now. After their deaths, the species of the Northern White Rhinos will disappear from the earth forever. What took evolution millions of years to create, is now dying because of human greed.

Scientists are actively discussing on how to save this species of rhinos by using these modern technologies. But the problem is that we regret things only when something is destroyed beyond repair. There are thousands of endangered species that can still be saved without using these expensive technologies. All we need to do is protect our forests, for our politicians, their friends, and their law enforcement agencies. Scientists are doing their job earnestly, but what about the others who aren't?

In May 2019, a report by the United Nations stated that there are more than 1 million species of plants and animals which are on the verge of mass extinction today. If we save these species today, then there won't be any need to de-extinct them in the future. There's the saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.