Earlier this week, we learned that a company called Colossal Biosciences managed to — steel yourself for this — revive dire wolves. Dire wolves are a species of wolf, larger than a normal wolf, that went extinct thousands of years ago. Until recently, they existed only in the imagination, and on TV shows like Game of Thrones, where each of the Stark children had one. But through the miracle of modern science, there are three new dire wolves now in the world: the twin brothers Romulus and Remus, and their little sister Khaleesi.
I'll say right at the top that there's some dispute over whether these are actually dire wolves as they were of old, or just a genetically modified version of a grey wolf that resembles what a real dire wolf may have looked like. Either way, it's cool, and there's no fighting the excellent marketing. Colossal knew that people have been talking about dire wolves a lot more in recent years thanks to the popularity of Game of Thrones, so it partnered up with A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin. Here he is holding Romulus or Remus; they're twins, it's hard to tell which it is:
George R.R. Martin holds the first new dire wolf born in 10,000 years pic.twitter.com/5JPepJK8k1
— Winter is Coming (@WiCnet) April 8, 2025
That photo's incredible. This one of a young Romulus and Remus napping on the Iron Throne is even better:
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
And where did Colossal get that Iron Throne? According to The Hollywood Reporter, it was lent to them by none other than Peter Jackson, the director of The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. Last year, a mystery buyer bought this Iron Throne in a bidding war, paying $1.49 million. We didn't know who that mystery buyer was until now. It was Jackson, adding the Iron Throne to a movie memorabilia collection that I imagine also contains a lot of swag from Middle-earth.
This Iron Thrones weighs around 330 pounds. HBO had several versions of the Iron Throne they used for different occasions; in the show itself, for promotional purposes, on tour, etc. With the Game of Thrones prequel show House of the Dragon heading into its third season, HBO definitely still has some Iron Thrones in the studio. But after Game of Thrones ended, it didn't need every Iron Throne in the prop department, and Jackson managed to pick this one up.
This story has everything: cloning, extinct megafauna coming back to life, a pair of high fantasy titans, adorable fluffy puppies who could grow up to be killing machines...I'm happy to sit back and see where it goes next. Colossal itself has plans to bring back other extinct species (or to genetically modify existing animals so they resemble those extinct species, potato-potatoe), as well as to preserve endangered species that haven't quite died out yet.
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