US-based biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences has claimed that, for the first time in the world, it has "revived" an extinct animal. The company says it has used cloning and gene-editing technology to bring back to life the dire wolf, a giant wolf that went extinct about 12,500 years ago.

Scientists at Dallas-based Colossal say they changed the genes of grey wolves to create three pups that look like dire wolves. Two male pups were born on 1 October 2024 and a female on 30 January 2025.

The research used DNA from a tooth about 13,000 years old and a skull 72,000 years old. The scientists analysed the ancient DNA to identify the dire wolf's traits, and with CRISPR technology made 20 changes in 14 genes in grey wolf cells.

The three pups are now kept under special protection at a secret site covering 2,000 acres, surrounded by a 10-foot "zoo-grade" fence and watched by security staff, drones and live cameras. Colossal says the facility is registered with the US Department of Agriculture and certified by the American Humane Society.

Founded in 2021, Colossal Biosciences is also working on projects to bring back the mammoth, the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger, but its dire wolf work had not been made public until now. The company also plans to produce mammoth calves by 2028.

Colossal co-founder and CEO Ben Lamm said the huge milestone proves that the company's de-extinction technology works, and that this is only the beginning.

Scientists are divided over the claim. Love Dalen, a professor at Stockholm University, said that across the whole genome the animal is 99.9 percent grey wolf, but in its outward form, coat colour and build it is very like a dire wolf, and that is what is remarkable. He called it a "dire wolf phenotype", a carrier of dire wolf-like traits.

De-extinction also has critics. Many believe protecting today's endangered animals matters more than pouring huge sums into this technology, and there are health risks for the living animals used as surrogates.

Christopher Preston, a professor of environmental philosophy at the University of Montana, said Colossal appears to have taken animal welfare into account, but that it is hard to say yet what role these animals could play in a real-world environment.

The report drew on CNN.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.