Have researchers really ‘de-extincted’ the dire wolf? No, but behind the hype was a genuine breakthrough | Helen Pilcher

The pups are cute – and great for PR – but they’re modified grey wolves. The real work is being done with their red cousins

I’ve been waiting for this. Ever since researchers almost brought a wild goat species back from extinction in 2003, it was only a matter of time until someone came forward and said they had successfully “de-extincted” a species. Now, it has happened.

This week, American biotech company Colossal Biosciences announced it had resurrected the dire wolf, an animal that went extinct at the end of the last ice age. Colossal released a video that invited viewers to “experience the first dire wolf howls heard in over 10,000 years”.

Helen Pilcher is a science writer and the author of Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-Extinction and Life Changing: How Humans are Altering Life on Earth