Dire Wolves and De-Extinction (Little Green Notebook)

Just Be Amazed

Dire Wolf Sketch, Canva Pro

“Dire Wolf Returns from Extinction!” “Dire Wolves Aren’t a Scientific Breakthrough!” “Is the Dire Wolf Back from the Dead?” Oh my stars, how the news about the dire wolf experiment rattled and rolled in my newsfeed this week.

I wanted to ignore this sensationalist/not sensationalist news item, resist the tech bros’ omniscient control over everything that I see online and their deliberate attempts to keep my brain distracted and bamboozled, but . . . wolves.

I can’t resist wolves. Dogs, you see, are the greatest animal on this earth. Nothing compares to the wonderous miracle of the existence of dogs. Hands down, no hesitation, no question, dogs are my favorite animal of all time. Wolves, by proxy, are my favorite wild animal. That’s just how it is.

Down I fell into the dire wolf de-extinction rabbit hole, digging with my keyboard-claws to get past both the sensationalist headlines and those claiming the whole dire wolf experiment is a big nothing-burger.

And as enlightenment is wont to reveal, I found truths all around, glimmering diamonds there for the mining, just beyond the distortions and banter.

I’ll share, of course.

To begin, what is a dire wolf, other than a creature made popular on Game of Thrones? Dire wolves look wolfish, but are about 20% larger than gray wolves, with more massive teeth and jaws. They are in a separate genus from wolves, having split off that line about 4.5 million years ago. Dire wolves dominated the area known now as Canada and the US and lived among humans as recently as 13,000 years ago. Their extinction was likely caused by competition with humans for prey, as well as their genetic isolation and inability to breed with gray wolves, their smaller and more adaptable competitors.

So, did scientists bring them back from extinction? It’s true that three beautiful gray wolf-dire wolf hybrid pups were recently born to three surrogate hound dogs. These pups have no actual DNA from dire wolves. They do, however, contain gray wolf DNA that was edited to match some dire wolf DNA.

To be clear, biology doesn’t care if a gene is edited or inherited. A code is a code, and proteins fold accordingly. Those edited genes did their work, and now there are living animals with dire wolf traits among us.

As a quick review, DNA is composed of strands of material that contain the instructions to make a living thing. DNA is made up of packets called genes. If DNA is a recipe book, genes are the recipes.

Every cell in every living thing carries a complete set of DNA, with the exception of sex cells which carry only half a set.

Back to wolves. Wolves have 78 chromosomes, or tightly wound packets of DNA. These 78 chromosomes contain around 19,000 genes. (For the record, humans have 46 chromosomes built of around 21,000 genes.) Scientists at Colossal Biosciences edited 15 selected genes in a sample of gray wolf DNA to match 15 dire wolf genes.

So, of 19,000 genes, 15 were edited. That sounds like a nothing-burger. Consider, however, that it only takes one mutated gene in a human to cause cystic fibrosis, hemochromatosis, Tay-Sachs, and sickle cell anemia.

The scientists at Colossal then used classic cloning techniques to create multiple DNA-modified embryos which they implanted into surrogate dogs.

When the pups were born, these bioengineers knew immediately they were no ordinary gray wolves. For one thing, they were larger. For another, they were born with white coats, a color not found in gray wolves. They are now exhibiting thick mane-like fur along their necks and bushy, bushy tails. They remain big.

I strongly recommend venturing over to Colossal’s website (colossal.com). Bring a full cup of coffee and plan to stay a while. You can gaze upon photos and videos of these gorgeous pups. You can read for yourself about their hidden, 2000-acre reserve where these hybrid gray wolf-dire wolf pups will live. You can read about Colossal Bioscience’s woolly mammoth project. You can decide for yourself if you think their work matters.

End result aside, the technology used in de-extinction efforts is extremely valuable, and not just to imperiled animals. While the words “GMO” and “bioengineering” strike Frankenstein-fear into the hearts of many, gene editing saved a one-year-old girl from dying of leukemia in 2015, a teen from the same fate in 2022, and has since been used to cure or treat hemophilia, blindness, other cancers, and Parkinson’s disease.

Digging and reading, taking notes, and watching videos of gene editing in the lab (these people are so dang smart) has pushed my brain forward. Getting past sensationalism as well as the “nattering nabobs of negativism” (thank you Vice President Spiro Agnew for that gem) has left me assured that while dire wolves have not exactly returned from extinction, dire wolfishness is here, and the process involved in this field is far from a nothing-burger.

We all would do well to be amazed.

Lola the Wonderdog hopes today is the day when you decide to purchase a copy of Box Turtles, Hooligans, and Love, Sweet Love! Read about pet rats, dreams of death by bear attack, and the delightful charm and braininess of slime molds. Seventy columns, each sure to provide you for interesting topics of conversation at your next social gathering, await. Available on Amazon, or see marydansak.com for information on ordering directly from me. Thank you in advance!