Meet Khaleesi: First female dire wolf is brought back from EXTINCTION - 12,000 years after the species vanished

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

It has been over 12,000 years since the last dire wolves vanished from the Earth.
But the apex predators, made famous by Game of Thrones, are once again growing their pack.
Last year, Colossal Biosciences genetically engineered the first litter of dire wolf pups, bringing this ice age species back from extinction.
Now, the first female dire wolf has finally been introduced to her two older brothers for the first time.
The male pups, Romulus and Remus, are now approaching one year old and have grown to be much larger than grey wolves of a similar age.
The female dire wolf, named Khaleesi after the Game of Thrones character, is just six months old and a lot smaller than her two older siblings.
Khaleesi had been raised separately for health monitoring and individual development, but Colossal Biosciences decided it was finally time for a family reunion.
In an adorable new video, you can watch Khaleesi and her siblings happily playing together as their handlers watch on carefully.
To create Khaleesi, Colossal Biosciences started by reconstructing the dire wolf genome from genes found in fragments of bone.
Using this genome as a reference, scientists then genetically modified a grey wolf embryo so that it closely resembled the extinct dire wolf.
This hybrid embryo was then implanted in a surrogate dog mother, which gave birth to an animal which is extremely similar to a dire wolf.
The males, born in October 2024, grew rapidly, reaching over 40 kg (90 lbs) in just six months.
Although the males and females were initially raised separately, Colossal Biosciences is now working to bring them together into a single pack.
Colossal Biosciences CEO Ben Lamm told USA Today: 'We're working through the socialisation and the introduction of Khaleesi into the pack.
'They're starting to behave more and more like wolves. We don't want them to be lap dogs.'
In this video, Khaleesi is let out into a large enclosure on Colossal Biosciences' 2,000–acre wildlife reserve, where she is given the chance to meet her brother, Romulus, for the first time.
What is the dire wolf?
The dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus) is an extinct wolf species that roamed the Americas as recently as 13,000 years ago.
Dire wolves were as much as 25 per cent larger than grey wolves and had a slightly wider head, light thick fur and stronger jaw.
As hyper–carnivores, their diet comprised at least 70 per cent meat from mostly horses and bison.
Dire wolves went extinct at the end of the most recent ice age, around 13,000 years ago.
Since Romulus is much larger than Khaleesi, the smaller female was initially a little uncertain.
Paige McNickle, manager of animal husbandry at Colossal Biosciences, says: 'At first, she was a little like, 'Whoa, he's right there."'
However, after giving each other a sniff, the pair soon set off in a playful run.
'They were playing with each other. Their ears were up the entire time, which is a good, happy, calm, wolf behaviour that we were hoping to see,' says Ms McNickle
After Khaleesi and Romulus had been introduced, Romulus was removed, and Remus was brought into the enclosure.
Ms McNickle says: 'They were both excited. Everybody was so good in play, but Remus is almost more gentle than Romulus.
'Romulus is just a little bit bigger, and Remus did really good. We saw lots of play behaviours.
'They kept their ears up, they wagged their tails. They followed each other around. They all got to explore the pool together. When they got hot, they went right over and cooled themselves off, especially Khaleesi.'
Then, finally, the whole trio were allowed to play together as a group, marking the first time a pack of male and female dire wolves has been together in over 12,000 years.
Although Khaleesi became a little frightened or uncertain at times, Mr Lamm says that she has now 'been completely accepted into the pack.'
However, Colossal Biosciences' pack won't stop at just three dire wolves.
Mr Lamm says the company has plans to engineer two to four more dire wolves over the coming years.
Rather than allowing the dire wolves to breed, Colossal Biosciences wants to engineer the wolves from different cell populations so that the pack has more genetic diversity.
Once the pack contains multiple dire wolves at different ages, natural pack dynamics and hierarchies should start to emerge.
Currently, Remus, the smaller of the two males, appears to be emerging as the leader.
Mr Lamm says that Remus 'kind of became the star' and that the young wolf 'really has this take–charge attitude'.
Colossal Biosciences says it has plans to engineer two to four more dire wolf pups to introduce into the pack before they will be allowed to breed
Colossal Biosciences plans to keep the dire wolf pack enclosed in the nature reserve and feed them meat, rather than letting them hunt wild game.
However, some experts have warned that a large pack of ice age predators could become dangerous.
Nic Rawlence, a palaeontologist at the University of Otago, previously told Daily Mail: 'If released into the wild in large enough numbers to establish a self–sustaining population, this new wolf could potentially take down prey larger than that hunted by grey wolves.
'There would also be the potential for increased human and wolf conflict. This sort of conflict is increasing as wolf populations recover in the USA.'
Inside the ambitious plan to 'de–extinct the Dodo': How scientists are using stem cell technology to bring back the extinct species
It's one of the most famous extinct animals of all time, ruthlessly hunted to extinction by humans in just a few decades.
Now, scientists are edging closer to bringing the famous dodo back to its original home of Mauritius, the island east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
US startup Colossal Biosciences, based in Dallas, Texas, is using stem cell technology and genome editing to create a modern approximation of the species.
At a cost of over $225 million (£180 million), it is 'de–extincting' the dodo more than 350 years after it was wiped out from Mauritius by European explorers.
Scientists have already achieved the monumental feat of sequencing the full genome of the extinct species, from bone specimens and other fragments.
The next step is to gene–edit the skin cell of a close living relative, which in the dodo's case is the Nicobar pigeon, so that its genome matches that of the extinct bird.