It’s official. We brought back dire wolves before George R.R. Martin got around to finishing The Winds of Winter. Not only that, but he’s rubbing it in our noses by posing with some of the world’s most famous canines, which of course have ties to Game of Thrones.
While there’s some dispute as to whether or not Romulus, Remus and, yes, Khaleesi are actually examples of dire wolves that have been “de-extinct”, two things are for sure: it’s pretty awesome to see George R.R. Martin holding them, and those are some cute puppers. Martin revealed he had the chance to meet the animals back in February, months before the story broke.
The team behind trying to revive the dire wolves, Colossal Biosciences – who has worked to try to de-extinct woolly mammoths, the Tasmanian tiger and dodo birds – took DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull to present these dire wolves. However, there is still debate whether or not Colossal has truly brought back dire wolves, as some claim they are just genetically engineered grey wolves or merely versions of the extinct animal. Either way, George R.R. Martin has a new dust jacket cover should he ever actually get back to the typewriter…
As per Business Wire, “The dire wolf, largely assumed to be a legendary creature made famous from the HBO hit series Game of Thrones, was an American canid that had previously been extinct for over 12,500 years. The successful birth of three dire wolves is a revolutionary milestone of scientific progress that illustrates another leap forward in Colossal’s de-extinction technologies and is a critical step on the pathway to the de-extinction of other target species.”
George R.R. Martin may or may not get around to finishing The Winds of Winter but word arrived last year that HBO was moving forward with a Game of Thrones movie, while a spin-off has also been teased. Whatever comes of the franchise, hopefully it works out better for Martin than House of the Dragon…
What is your take on the “de-extinct” dire wolves?
