Talk:Dire wolf

direwolf

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I propose that this article remains about the Dire wolf (Canis dirus) and should not be confused with the direwolf (note the one-word name) that relates to the series of novels forming A Song of Ice and Fire and the television series Game of Thrones. Editors wanting to contribute to the direwolf topic are referred to those articles. Any edits to this Dire wolf page regarding the direwolf will be removed. Please vote either YES or NO. William Harris • talk • 10:34, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

• YES I wholeheartedly agree with this.--Mr Fink (talk) 15:33, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
• YES I agree, though I'm pretty sure direwolf will be redirected to some GOT related list, and not remain a separate article for long. FunkMonk (talk) 02:05, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
• YES Strebe (talk) 18:13, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

The consensus WP:CONS is full support for this proposal. It is now implemented. William Harris • talk • 04:31, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal - change of genus: Canis →Aenocyon

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I propose that the genus of the direwolf be changed in this article from Canis to Aenocyon based on the findings of a major genetic study, which suggests that they are a separate lineage to genus Canis and proposes the older (1918) genus name of Aenocyon. Study found at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03082-x (with publicly available news report found at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dire-wolves-were-not-really-wolves-new-genetic-clues-reveal/) William Harris (talk) 11:01, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support - it seems well-supported, and even in the unlikely event it gets overturned, it doesn't affect the article's title, so is easy to change. FunkMonk (talk) 11:12, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support - ditto Mariomassone (talk) 12:13, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:26, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Support per nom, though we can’t assume that consensus among experts has, or will, happen. I merely believe such consensus will be forthcoming and therefore support verbiage explaining that the results are too new to be considered ‘fact’. Strebe (talk) 23:55, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

The consensus WP:CONS is full support for this proposal. William Harris (talk) 06:49, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Canis vs Aenocyon (Dog vs Terrible Dog)

I will be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about how the whole taxonomic system works, but I do know that if you want to change peoples' minds, you need to put it in their faces, ie. newspaper ads, magazine covers, billboards, and more recently, Google searches. I saw it discussed here, after or when it had been done, that the infobox had been changed to Aenocyon. Now, do a Google search of Canis dirus dirus and look at the results, in particular the sidebar or, if you will, the infobox. Wikipedia may not consider itself a reliable source, but a good portion of the rest of the world does. By allowing the change to stand, even though the experts still haven't reached a consensus, means we have now violated WP:CRYSTAL. One of you Guardians of the Sciences should address this: I'm not that bold, and I'm likely to screw it up.  — Myk Streja ^(beep) 15:49, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Since it's not really controversial, it's fairly standard to follow such revisions here. In case a future DNA study finds fault with the last one, we'll just change the article accordingly, wouldn't be the first time. FunkMonk (talk) 16:21, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: Well, I'm writing for an online story site (nope, not sharing that), and as part of my research I'm investigating the dire wolf (sabertooth, too). That's why I got to here and saw the discussions. The article confused me and now I see why. That said, another site I went to, the San Diego Wildlife Alliance Library, doesn't even mention Aenocyon, and it was last updated March 2021. See where I'm going? Should we be embracing this change so quickly? Everywhere else is either strictly Canis or they're hedging and saying Canis/Aenocyon. And there's my two pence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Myk Streja (talk • contribs)

Why would the San Diego Wildlife Alliance Library be a relevant authority for animals that became extinct ten thousand years ago? While for living (and to a lesser extent, recently extinct) animals Wikipedia defers to external authorities for classification, for extinct animals the taxonomy is essentially based on whatever happens to be the prevailing name used. Genetic results are typically more reliable than morphological results because they are not subject to homoplasy. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:31, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not sure the website of a zoo would even be up to date with the latest palaeontological research anyway, so not particularly relevant. And if you look at the page's citations, the newest is from 2010, so it's not like they've taken a stand on this issue at all, it just relies on decade old sources. FunkMonk (talk) 01:36, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

The key point is that the genus Aenocyon has been proposed (reinstated?) by 50 evolutionary biologists, and nobody has rebutted it. Therefore, it is not contentious and to claim that "the experts still haven't reached a consensus" is rebutted on the facts. William Harris (talk) 08:00, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Previous Discussions of Calibrated Radiocarbon Dating

@Strebe I should’ve mentioned this in the edit comments, but the changes I made were ones that @FunkMonk, @Hemiauchenia, and I agreed to in the Columbian mammoth talk page. The radiocarbon dates in the 20th and early 21st century dates are uncalibrated, an issue that is addressed by the more accurate calibrated radiocarbon dates as for instance discussed in the edit history for Megalonyx. PrimalMustelid (talk) 13:28, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@PrimalMustelid: Sounds good. Your edits left in place citations that contradict the edits, so we would need to find suitable replacements. Besides the dates, there is count of extinct megafauna genera, for example. Obviously Stuart is reliable, but if there is controversy remaining among experts, we should be careful about relying on a single reference. Strebe (talk) 17:10, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Canis

It would appear that some paleobiologists are not buying the paleogeneticists re-classification to genus Aenocyon, based on the latest paper here.
We need to keep in mind that Perri et al 2021 did not reveal which of the two mutation rates often used by wolf geneticists was used to give a date of genetic divergence of 5.7 million years ago. The dating may be out by a factor of x2, with the possibility that the age is actually 2.8 million years - which puts the dire wolf straight back into genus Canis once again. Time will tell. 14.2.192.61 (talk) 08:06, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

They don't even attempt to refute that study nor do they comment on its results, so saying they aren't "buying into it" is an overstatement. FunkMonk (talk) 09:49, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

This particular group of researchers classified dirus as genus Canis and not Aenocyon is all that I am highlighting. 14.2.192.61 (talk) 10:24, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

De-extinction coverage

Thread retitled from "OH MY SCIENCE ITS BACK FROM EXTINCTION".

OH MY GOD!!!!

• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-07/-de-extinction-startup-with-10-billion-valuation-revives-dire-wolf
• https://time.com/7274542/colossal-dire-wolf/

2A02:CB80:4140:67F2:4DB9:CAFD:EBB5:BAC0 (talk) 15:51, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

If some digging I've found is right, these canids, are, at the moment, basically mixes as opposed to true clones. A grey wolf with some DNA from dire wolves. Nungimelheshin (talk) 15:59, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

That being said, even with them being mixes alone could lead to lots of advances in genetics, not just cloning the dead. Nungimelheshin (talk) 16:01, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

They seem to be hybrids at best. What seems much more likely is that they simply constitute GMO-grey wolves. As far as I can tell can tell, they are simply wolves that have been modified to have a larger, more muscular build along with a thicker and whiter coat, and I doubt if these new pups contain any actual Aenocyon DNA in them. Aenocyon dirus was not closely related to wolves, and so this by no means "de-extincts" it. While it is incredibly cool and exciting, this new project by Colossal does not bring the dire wolf back to life. Trajectory1521 (talk) 16:10, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Well actually my dad lived with dire wolves and he said that they looked exactly like this, idk what ur talking about 2A02:CB80:4140:67F2:4DB9:CAFD:EBB5:BAC0 (talk) 16:16, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Colossal Biosciences recently made headlines by announcing the world’s first successful de-extinction of dire wolves, marking a historic moment in genetic science and conservation. The company revealed the birth of three genetically engineered dire wolf pups—Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi—created using cutting-edge CRISPR gene-editing technology. By analyzing ancient DNA from 13,000- and 72,000-year-old dire wolf fossils, scientists identified and edited 20 key genes across 14 loci in the gray wolf genome, targeting traits that defined the dire wolf, such as its massive size, powerful musculature, broader skull, and thick fur adapted to colder climates. These edited genomes were used in cloning, with domestic dogs serving as surrogate mothers to carry the embryos to term. The pups were born healthy and are currently being raised in a secure, undisclosed natural preserve, where scientists are monitoring their behavior, development, and ecological impact.

This breakthrough represents a major leap forward in de-extinction science, with Colossal applying similar strategies to other projects involving the woolly mammoth and dodo. However, the revival of the dire wolf also brings complex questions: Are these animals truly "dire wolves" or modern hybrids with some dire traits? What responsibilities do we have when reintroducing long-lost species into today’s ecosystems, which have evolved in their absence? And how do we ensure their welfare and ecological balance? While Colossal frames the project as a way to advance conservation tools and genetic rescue, critics caution against the unknowns and potential unintended consequences of bringing extinct apex predators back into the wild. Regardless, the successful birth of these pups has turned science fiction into science fact—and opened a new chapter in the story of life on Earth. 2A02:CB80:4140:67F2:4DB9:CAFD:EBB5:BAC0 (talk) 17:00, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

The claim from Colossal is that they “rewrote” the wolf genes that differed from dire wolf to match dire wolf’s. The populist articles make it sound like they rewrote all of them that differed, meaning, the new animals have the same DNA as a dire wolf. Where that leaves the situation for alleles that are prevalent in one species but not the other is not answered by these articles, but the limited number of genes they modified could not have produced a dire wolf that would have existed in the wild, and almost certainly would have fitness deficiencies in the wild beyond just the loss of cultural transmission. The article shouldn’t give credence to the de-extinction claim until some sort of scientific consensus emerges as to what these creatures add up to. Strebe (talk) 16:43, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

You're totally right to question the framing around Colossal’s work, and I think your skepticism is exactly what’s needed in discussions like these. The term "rewriting" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, and you nailed it when you pointed out that most popular science articles gloss over the nuances in favor of clean, headline-friendly declarations like “the dire wolf is back.”

But let’s unpack that claim a bit, because even if they rewrote every wolf gene that differs from the dire wolf version (which they didn’t), that still wouldn’t result in a genome that’s functionally equivalent to a true dire wolf. Why? Because the genome is far more than the sum of its coding regions. There are non-coding regulatory elements, epigenetic factors, structural genomic arrangements, and even ancient viral insertions that may have played a role in the original dire wolf’s physiology and behavior—all of which are not being touched in this editing process.

And then there’s the matter of alleles, which you brought up—absolutely key. Even if a gene is edited to "match" the dire wolf’s sequence, we’re still not addressing population-level genetic diversity. A resurrected dire wolf built from a single set of edited alleles is essentially a genetic monoculture. That’s not even close to the level of complexity and adaptability found in a wild, breeding population. It’s like trying to revive a language by reconstructing a single sentence. Where’s the variation? The nuance? The flexibility that allows the species to adapt to changing pressures?

And that ties perfectly into your point about fitness deficiencies. There’s almost no way a creature with a stitched-together genome, developed in a domestic dog surrogate and raised in a controlled preserve, will have the resilience or instinctual behavior necessary for survival in the wild. Cultural transmission—pack hunting strategies, territory marking, social cues, prey targeting—those aren’t hardcoded in the genome; they’re learned, and that learning happens over generations. You can’t clone a behavioral ecosystem.

So the real danger here, as you suggested, is that the narrative is outpacing the science. By the time the academic consensus even starts to form around what these animals actually are (genetically, behaviorally, ecologically), the public has already absorbed the message: “Dire wolves are back.” That’s a powerful story, but a potentially misleading one.

I’d argue that instead of calling this de-extinction, we should be framing it as something closer to synthetic paleo-design—a mix of bioengineering and educated guesswork inspired by extinct species. It's more Jurassic Park-meets-Biopunk than literal resurrection.

So yeah, let’s definitely keep pushing for more transparency and more cautious framing, especially before we assign words like “revival” or “reintroduction” to what is, at best, a biological prototype with only partial resemblance to the original species.

Would be curious to hear what you think qualifies as the scientific threshold for calling something truly “de-extinct.” Is it full genomic restoration? Viable wild reproduction? Behavioral replication? Or something else entirely? 2A02:CB80:4140:67F2:4DB9:CAFD:EBB5:BAC0 (talk) 17:04, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

in my opinion, i think these "dire wolves" should be considered new species of the dire wolf genus instead of directly being the same one as the dire wolf from the pleistocene, since it isnt 100% a dire wolf and has DNA from the grey wolf Stmbus (talk) 16:24, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

In the Time article, it claims that Colossal changed 14 out the roughly 19 000 genes in the Canis lupus genome to produce the three pups. If all of this was Aenocyon dirus DNA, it would mean that 0.07% of their genome was of dire wolf origin. I do not think having changed 14 genes from Canis lupus would make this a new species. And that would be the optimistic viewpoint. It doesn't seem as if there is any information (currently) on specifically what and how they changed it, so they may have simply changed some Canis lupus DNA to express some dire wolf features, which would absolutely not make it part of the Aenocyon genus. If there is new information that I have missed that contradicts my statements, please inform me of it and share it with me. Trajectory1521 (talk) 16:38, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I see your point. However we need their statement as to how many % of DNA from Aenocyon dirus is used to make these wolves.

We'll see where this evolves into. Stmbus (talk) 16:42, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

About the 14 genes changed, they claimed that they did 20 edits to a gray wolf embryo across 14 genes. 15 of these edits are identical to DNA found in dire wolves. The other 5 are edits that lead to key dire wolf traits, which, they claim they know from studying their genome and fossils.

https://www.reddit.com/r/deextinction/comments/1jtn36h/comment/mlvw8t8/?context=3 Stmbus (talk) 16:54, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

That's a good breakdown of what Colossal said, but it opens up a ton of fascinating questions that go beyond the surface. So, if they made 20 edits across 14 genes in a gray wolf embryo—15 of which are identical to dire wolf DNA and 5 of which are predictive edits based on fossil interpretation and comparative genomics—that still leaves us in this weird limbo between de-extinction and synthetic biology. Like, are we actually looking at a “resurrected” dire wolf, or is this more of a "neo-wolf" hybrid with carefully selected traits we think represent dire wolves?

Because here’s the thing: even if the edits match sequences found in fossil DNA, that’s only a tiny sliver of what made a dire wolf a dire wolf. We’re talking about editing maybe 0.1%–0.5% of the genome at best. The rest of the dire wolf's genome—non-coding regions, regulatory sequences, epigenetic markers, gene expression patterns under Ice Age environmental pressures—all of that is still largely unknown or absent. The organism resulting from these edits may look like a dire wolf in certain ways (size, skull shape, fur thickness, etc.), but without the full genomic context, it’s really more of a best-guess facsimile.

Also, those 5 edits that aren't directly copied from dire wolf DNA? That’s wild. It means Colossal is venturing into speculative genetic design, where they're taking fossil morphology and trying to reverse-engineer the genetics behind it. That's not necessarily bad—it’s super innovative—but it blurs the line between scientific restoration and creative interpretation. It’s like trying to rebuild a dinosaur from chicken DNA and fossil bones: even if you get something that looks the part, it may behave, metabolize, or reproduce completely differently from the original.

And there’s another layer too: gene expression is highly context-dependent. Just because you drop a gene into a genome doesn’t mean it’s going to express the same way it did in a Pleistocene environment. These dire wolf traits could show up differently in the modern biological framework of a gray wolf-derived embryo. Environmental interaction, gene-gene interactions (epistasis), and random mutation over generations all contribute to how traits actually appear in the organism.

So the real question is: what are we actually reviving here? A dire wolf? A new sub-species of gray wolf with retrofitted features? Or a kind of conceptual homage to the dire wolf built from modern building blocks?

Either way, I’m not knocking what Colossal did—it’s incredible work. But I think it’s important we don’t conflate phenotypic resemblance with full biological resurrection. A museum replica and the original artifact might look the same at a glance, but under the microscope—or in a living ecosystem—they’re not interchangeable.

Would love to hear your thoughts on how you see the line between revival and recreation. Do you think this qualifies as a “true” de-extinction, or is it something else entirely? 2A02:CB80:4140:67F2:4DB9:CAFD:EBB5:BAC0 (talk) 17:03, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I’ve requested page protection for this article. What is clear is that this is not a de-extinction. It is a “rewriting” of a limited number of wolf genes to give it characteristics of a dire wolf. Any mention of this sensationalist news needs to get hashed out here. Strebe (talk) 16:13, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Did they also make an albino one and name it Ghost? 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 16:18, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

These are not "true" dire wolves. these are "dire wolves" with grey wolf dna.

In my opinion, i think there should be a new Wikipedia page about these dire wolves, since i consider them to be more of a new specie of dire wolves than true dire wolves Stmbus (talk) 16:26, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Pretty Interesting to have them as a New Species! 2600:4040:5F5E:A200:78C1:5E1E:A0FE:7EBF (talk) 16:41, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I would personally wait for the opinion of a taxonomist (or perhaps a hundred) before classifying them as a new species. Trajectory1521 (talk) 16:43, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree, until them we should still considers them "grey wolves" with Dire wolf DNA Stmbus (talk) 16:44, 7 April 2025 (UTC)