A biotechnological society has, in some way, revived the terrible wolf for long extinct

It is a fierce and majestic beast that has disappeared thousands of years ago, except for artistic renderings in books and on the screen, as in game of Thrones.

Or, perhaps, it’s just a gray wolf with some changes.

The American biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences made a surprise announcement on Monday, claiming to have brought the terrible wolf from the dead, thus reaching the first “de-extinction” of society.

Colossals have shown video of the soft white wolf puppies that wander in its 2,000 acres habitat in a position not disclosed in the northern United States, marking a great victory for the company that is also working to relive the woolly mammoth, the Dodo and the Tasmania Tiger.

But some scientists say that while the existence of the wolves is an impressive undertaking, they are not exactly like advertised.

“I want to see some Peer-Reviewed documents come out of this, to get a better idea of ​​what has been done and what is known and what is not done,” said Hank Grely, director of the Center for the law of Stanford University and biosciences.

He says that seeing the puppies puts a smile on his face, and it was a welcome surprise in a landscape of news otherwise desolate.

But in his opinion, creation is more a “terrible wolf”.

“I think it is important for people to remember that these are not terrible wolves. There are gray wolves that have some terrible features of the wolf,” said Grely. “On the other hand, they seem to be closer to the terrible wolves than anything else that someone has seen for 13,000 years, and it is quite beautiful. And they are cute to die for.”

Once hunted big prey

The great species of wolves wandered the Americas for over 100,000 years, before extinguishing about 13,000 years ago.

It was believed that he had hunted great prey such as horses, bisons and giant sloths, and that they have disappeared largely because his species of prey were extinct, in part due to the hunting of humans.

Colossal’s Chief Scientific Officer, Beth Shapiro Beth, says that scientists have extracted DNA for a 13,000 -year -old tooth and an internal bone of 72,000 years from a terrible wolf skull and extracted and sequenced the DNA to assemble the genomes.

They determined that the gray wolf was its closest living relative – “99.5 percent identical” in DNA, says – and similar in appearance but larger, more muscular and with a clearer color coat, wider skull and stronger jaw.

Scientists have therefore changed the gray wolf cells to give them terrible features of the wolf, making 20 changes in 14 genes before creating embryos and implant them in large domestic hounds.

Three of the eight dogs used as surrogated mothers gave birth to terrible wolves, Shapiro said, and the mothers were then adopted anonymously through the American Humane Society – “So, somewhere out there, there are families who have adopted a dog that gave birth to a terrible wolf and do not know”.

Colossal says that two male puppies, Romulus and Remus, were born on October 1st – now putting them in the early stages of adolescence – while Khaleesi, a female, was born on January 30 and is almost to the age in which it can be “introduced to the boys”, said Shapiro.

Kevin Campbell, professor at the Department of Biological Sciences of the University of Manitoba, says that the puppies look a lot like terrible wolves, it is difficult to know how physiologically similar are.

“They edited 20 different mutations … which hit 14 genes. And to put it in perspective, a wolf probably has 22 or 23,000 different genes,” he said. “At this moment what we have is a gray wolf of 99.999 percent, with a terrible wolf of 0.001 percent.”

Bring back the phenotypes

Shapiro recognizes that puppies are not exactly the same as the terrible wolves of the past, but says that the idea was to create something with the same characteristics that can live a healthy life in the modern era.

“When we are thinking about the distinction, we are not imagining that we will recreate something genetically identical to something that was alive,” he told CBC News. “This is not very practical and it is probably not also what we want. Instead, we want to report these phenotypes, the extinct sections that have defined this species.”

The colossal CEO Ben Lamm says that the project started about two years ago, as a way to make people talk about wolves and save the red wolf in the end of the extinction.

On this front, the private company based in Dallas has simultaneously announced on Monday that it has also produced four cloned red wolves using a new less invasive technique that she developed while working on the terrible wolves.

Lamm says that several American indigenous communities have expressed interest in reintroducing terrible wolves on their land, but says it would be a complicated process that requires in -depth advice with landowners, governments and other interested parties.

For now, Colossal is studying the disastrous puppies closely and does not plan to present them to a wild habitat.

Some have criticized Colossal’s de-astonction projects for having removed attention from the least flashy work carried out by the organizations dedicated to the conservation of existing species and their habitats.

Joe Walston, head of global conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society, claims to appreciate that extinction projects can inspire people to think about the conservation of species and does not oppose the use of technology as a tool to help preserve species such as red wolf.

But most species, he says, can recover to an “incredible rate” if their habitats are simply preserved and left alone.

“We have tigers, we have lions, we have wolves themselves, we have these great predators that go from this land that are in trouble and need our help,” he said.

“Sometimes we are too distracted by the novelty of something and let’s forget that what we already have on earth is currently the most remarkable assembly of the species that the world has ever seen.”