The Latest Breaking News from Colossal

When you hear about a company actively working to bring back extinct animals using genetic science, your mind probably jumps to one place: Jurassic Park. The iconic gates, the majestic (and terrifying) dinosaurs, and the tagline that promised a walk with prehistory are permanently etched in our cultural DNA.

Biotech company Colossal Biosciences made headlines in April 2025 after claiming it had “successfully restored … the dire wolf to its rightful place in the ecosystem.” Three wolf pups – Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi – were born through this de-extinction project.

Colossal Biosciences, a Texas-based biotech company, made headlines this April after falsely claiming to resurrect the extinct dire wolf. The company presents this as a breakthrough for conservation biology. However, our team of conservation geneticists at the Western University — along with many other academics views it as a dangerous…

Recent findings indicate that dire wolves and gray wolves are distantly related, having diverged about 5.7 million years ago and, as far as scientists can tell, never interbred since then.

Wolf conservationists say the truly dire matter is protecting America’s wild gray wolves — but that’s not as cute and cuddly for the headlines

Over the past week, the media have been inundated with news of the “de-extinction” of the dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus) – a species that went extinct about 13,000 years ago.

The American genetic engineering firm Colossal Biosciences recently announced to much fanfare it had “de-extincted” the dire wolf, a canine species that was wiped out around 10,000 years ago. However, the three animals it presented are actually modern grey wolves with some genetic modifications.

It’s not as sensational as recreating long-dead species, but conserving modern-day fauna is far more pressing

The pups are cute – and great for PR – but they’re modified grey wolves. The real work is being done with their red cousins, says science writer Helen Pilcher