Return of the dire wolf

cyfanbr

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That’s the company’s claim. Kinda. But to say this is a dire wolf recreation is incredibly inaccurate. Primates share even more DNA but to say you created a human from an orangutan because you changed a dozen genes or so to make them hairless would be false. These are not dire wolves simply because a few traits were changed.
Still very interesting science but no.


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Yea I still don’t get it.

I don’t have a PhD in genetics, but shouldn’t be that difficult (after hundreds of years of science lol). A DNA is nothing more than a sequence of nucleotides (Adenine (A), Guanine (G), Cytosine (C), Thymine (T)).

If you start with a gray wolf DNA and make the modifications to match the genome sequence of a dire wolf then you have a dire wolf.
 

Freebird

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Yea I still don’t get it.

I don’t have a PhD in genetics, but shouldn’t be that difficult (after hundreds of years of science lol). A DNA is nothing more than a sequence of nucleotides (Adenine (A), Guanine (G), Cytosine (C), Thymine (T)).

If you start with a gray wolf DNA and make the modifications to match the genome sequence of a dire wolf then you have a dire wolf.
They modified twenty genes. There are millions of pairs left that not the same. They didn’t make dire wolves they made grey wolves with some dire wolf genetic traits. It’s not the same thing
 

herbicide

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They tried like hell to kill all the Coyotes.

The difference between Coyotes and wolves is how they react to killings.

In 1899, Montana paid out on 23,000 plus wolves, and by 1927, only 17.

Yotes, on the other hand, averaged 30,000 paid bounties per year from 1883 to 1920.

From 1883 to 1927, Montana paid out 111,500 bounties on wolves and over 886,000 bounties on coyotes. Yotes adapted because that is what they have always done.

In fact, trying to kill them all out has led to their explosion in population and expansion to 49 states and much of Canada and Central America. All while still killing more than 400,000/year.
I had no idea there was such an eradication program.
 

Bret44

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That’s the company’s claim. Kinda. But to say this is a dire wolf recreation is incredibly inaccurate. Primates share even more DNA but to say you created a human from an orangutan because you changed a dozen genes or so to make them hairless would be false. These are not dire wolves simply because a few traits were changed.
Still very interesting science but no.


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I have heard Beth Shapiro speak on a few podcasts. I think some of the work they are doing at Colossal is awesome, but that last bit there is funny. Yes, species are a human concept, but DNA isn't. Just because they may look somewhat like what Shapiro and Colossal think a Dire Wolf looked like doesn't make them Dire wolves. If that were the case, each dog breed would be a different species, even though they all share the same genetic code: a Saint Bernard, a Yorkie, or a mut.

Editied: Spelling
 
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throwittoblythe

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If you can sequence the genome of any extinct animal, and produce a gene edited species that when it reproduce naturally has the same genome, they're the same species. Not technically, but actually.
There’s the social aspect as well. These pups don’t have any adults from their species to socialize them. I haven’t read much on them yet. Are they mixing them with a grey wolf pack?

Regardless, these pups won’t be reared the same way as their ancestors so there will undoubtedly be some differences. It will be interesting to see if any instincts take over if they breed or create enough for a pack.
 

Bret44

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If you can sequence the genome of any extinct animal, and produce a gene edited species that when it reproduce naturally has the same genome, they're the same species. Not technically, but actually.

Except it isn't the same complete genome. Yes, the DNA of the Dire Wolves and Gray Wolves is 99.5% the same, but there is still no Dire Wolf DNA in the pups. I am not discounting the work they did/are doing, but they are not the same species; they are still Canis Lupus. Just because something is phenotypically the same doesn't mean it is genotypically the same.

A Rotwiller and Shih Tzu are closer related to each other than those pups are to Dire Wolves.

Again, cool science, the marketing of this, though, is wrong.

And all this was done before the scientific research papers were released to the public.