Dire Wolves return after over 10000 years thanks to genetic engineering
If you have watched Game of Thrones, then you will be well aware of the wolves of the Stark family. These white wolves are called Dire Wolf and they were now considered imaginary because they became extinct over 10000 years ago. But now science has shown its magic and given them life again. Scientists have revived the extinct species Dire Wolf through genetic engineering. With the help of this technology, three children of Dire Wolf have been born. Their names are Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi. They are only three to six months old, but their size is about four feet and weight is more than 36 kg. According to a CNN report, the company behind reviving this extinct species, Texas-based Colossal Biosciences, said that it has produced Dire Wolf children using ancient DNA, cloning and gene editing. “The idea is that we can just take a vial of blood, isolate EPCs, culture them, and clone from them, and their cloning efficiency is so high, we think it’s a game changer,” George Church, Colossal’s co-founder and a professor of genetics at both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told Time magazine.
Billionaire Elon Musk reacted to the news with a request of his own. Musk re-shared his post and posted on X, “Please make a small pet woolly mammoth.”
After birth, all three wolves were fed milk by a surrogate for a few days. After this, the Colossal team started feeding them milk from a bottle. The company said, they are now living as healthy young dire wolves. But their behavior is different from other existing wolf species. According to Time, the enthusiasm that dire wolves usually show is completely absent in the presence of humans. Romulus and Remus keep their distance and back away when a person approaches. This behavior is said to be particularly prevalent in the Dire Wolf – they want to be left alone.
