Real-life dire wolves have now doubled in size

Earlier this year, a company called Colossal Biosciences brought into the world a trio of dire wolves, an ancient, large kind of wolf that died out thousands of years ago. Still, people knew what they were because direwolves featured heavily on Game of Thrones; they were the animal companions for the Stark children. Colossal knew that, because it got George R.R. Martin, the guy who wrote the Game of Thrones books, to to hold one and took this awesome photo:

Although my personal favorite is this one, of dire wolf pups Romulus and Remus snoozing o the Iron Throne:

There's also a third, younger dire wolf pup named Khaleesi, a female named after Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. We catch up with all of them in a new video that George R.R. Martin spotlighted on his Not a Blog:

Basically, the pups are growing up nicely. Romulus and Remus are about six months old now; their weigh around 90 lbs each, which is 20% larger than the standard grey wolf common in the world today. They eat high-quality dog kibble as well as human-grade ground meat, and enjoy playing with rob bones and knuckle bones. Apparently Remus is the "alpha" between the two. They're about to go to their first doctor's appointment, which will give the team a chance to draw their blood and give them thorough tests to see how they're developing.

Meanwhile, Khaleesi is smaller, which makes sense since she's younger and female. She weighs about 35 lbs right now, which is still 10-15% than how big your average female grey wolf is at this point in their life cycle. The plan is to eventually have Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi all together on the same preserve, but right now Khaleesi is being kept separate from her older brothers. Soon, the team will make it so the three of them can see and smell each other, but still won't let them interact. If they get good responses from that, they'll integrate the whole pack.

I know some fans take issue with the idea that these are actually dire wolves in truth; Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi are just grey wolves who have been genetically modified to look like extinct grey wolfs, they argue. And maybe that's true, but it's also true that it's fun to imagine a reality where we share the planet with Game of Thrones creatures, so I'm willing to continue keeping an eye on this.

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