Yesterday, we learned that scientists at Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences had successfully whelped three dire wolf puppies, which is quite an accomplishment because the dire wolf has been extinct for thousands of years. (Technically, they altered the DNA of modern grey wolves to make them more like the dire wolves of old, but that's not as fun.) “Our team took DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies,” Colossal CEO Ben Lamm said in a statement, per The Hollywood Reporter. “It was once said, ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Today, our team gets to unveil some of the magic they are working on and its broader impact on conservation.”
The guy who said that quote about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic was sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke. Lamm would know that, because Lamm and a lot of the scientists who work for him are probably dorks, and I know that because of how many dorky connections this story has.
To start, the three direwolf pups are named Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi; Romulus and Remus are brothers named after the mythical founders of Rome, while their young sister Khaleesi is named after Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. Colossal has also made George R.R. Martin, the man behind Game of Thrones, part of its team; he's on board as a "cultural adviser and investor."
In Game of Thrones, the Stark children find a litter of direwolf puppies early in the story, and adopt them. Like their owners, not all of the massive wolves survive the story, but several come in handy before the end. “Many people view dire wolves as mythical creatures that only exist in a fantasy world, but in reality, they have a rich history of contributing to the American ecosystem,” Martin said in a statement.
We can keep going. Peter Jackson, who directed The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies, also invested in Colossal. Not only that, but he loaned the company a prop version of the Iron Throne he won in a bidding war for $1.49 million last year so they could take this photo:
Scientists revived dire wolves, which have been extinct for thousands of years, and then photographed them on the Iron Throne: pic.twitter.com/MqLgqEcO3f
— Winter is Coming (@WiCnet) April 7, 2025
Yes, those are actual direwolves, here on Earth for the first time in millennia, snoozing on the Iron Throne. It's a scientific miracle AND a branding miracle.
Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi live on a 2000-acre ecological preserve in an undisclosed location, the better to preserve their privacy. In addition to cloning endangered species like red wolves, Colossal has plans to bring back more extinct species like the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the Tasmanian tiger. What will they be photographed next to? Time will tell.
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