Science & Technology

Colossal Biosciences wants to breed its de-extincted 'dire wolf' pups

By T.K. Randall
May 10, 2026 ·  7 comments

Image: AI-generated (Midjourney) Just over a year ago, Texas-based firm Colossal Biosciences revealed that it had succeeded in bringing dire wolves back from extinction - the first time that any extinct species had ever been resurrected using modern 'de-extinction' techniques.

To achieve this, scientists used cloning and gene-editing techniques.

"This massive milestone is the first of many coming examples demonstrating that our end-to-end de-extinction technology stack works," Colossal's chief executive Ben Lamm said at the time.

"Our team took DNA from a 13,000 year old tooth and a 72,000 year old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies."

While this achievement would seem to be impressive, the claim has since been met with some significant skepticism from the scientific community, with many arguing that the pups aren't true dire wolves.Even so, the firm is showing no signs of slowing down and now, according to reports, it is hoping to create more pups so that it will have a viable breeding population of the animals.

"The plan is to create an inter-breedable population of dire wolves in which they would eventually breed naturally to create a sustainable population of the world's first de-extinct species," chief animal officer Matt James told The Telegraph.

"We will grow the population through assisted reproduction initially and then eventually only rely on natural breeding."

As things stand, the pups born last year are understood to be doing very well.

"The three dire wolves live on a 2,000-acre secure, expansive ecological preserve that allows us to monitor and manage them while providing them a semi-wild habitat to thrive in," said Lamm.

"We hope to have more dire wolf pups by the end of the year."


Source: Mail Online | Comments (7)

Tags: Dire Wolf, Resurrection