The Return of the Dire Wolf

Read more: The Science Behind the Return of the Dire Wolf

The cloned red wolves now live in a separate fenced area within the same 2,000-acre preserve as the dire wolves. Like Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi, they will spend their lives there and not be rewilded. But later red wolves might be, as Colossal learns more about the clones’ health and fitness. The company says it’s in advanced discussions with the state of North Carolina about “conservation tools that can be used to help rescue the red wolf and accelerate its recovery.”

“It’s the lost genetics of the world’s most endangered wolf,” says James. “And we now have the opportunity to use our cloning and genetic-engineering tools to be able to confer that genetic diversity back into the recovery of the species.”

Similar science might work to save the northern quoll, a small, carnivorous marsupial native to Australia. Quolls are threatened by the cane toad, which was introduced to Australia in 1935 in an attempt to control beetle pests that were devouring sugarcane roots. The experiment failed, with the toads showing no particular appetite for the target insects, all the while doing a fine job of feasting on other insect prey, and becoming an invasive species themselves. Quolls, in turn, prey on the toads—but often lose their lives in the process because of a toxin that the toads carry on their skin, pushing the little marsupial to the edge of extinction. Through their work trying to bring back the extinct thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, one member of the marsupial family that includes the quoll, Colossal scientists have identified a single change in a single nucleotide—a basic building block of DNA and RNA—that could confer a 5,000-fold resistance to the cane toad neurotoxin.