Elon Musk has reacted to a company claiming that it has brought back dire wolves from extinction. The company allegedly created genetically engineered wolves resembling extinct dire wolves with white hair and muscular jaws. In his X posts, Musk labelled a video of the three cubs trotting, sleeping, and howling as cool and added his desire to have a miniature version of another extinct species as a pet.
The first post that the world’s richest man shared shows two edited images. The first one resembles the cover of the Time Magazine. It shows a picture of a white wolf-like animal with the words “Extinct” crossed out on top.
The second visual shows two wolf pups resting on the Game of Thrones-style Iron Throne. The television series made the extinct species famous.
Researchers at Colossal Biosciences have revived three cubs in the “world’s first de-extinction”. The two male cubs, six-month-olds, are named Romulus and Remus. The two-month-old female cub is named after one of the series' main characters, Khaleesi.
Elon Musk wants…
Resharing his own X post, the world’s richest man wrote, “Please make a miniature pet woolly mammoth (sic).”
How did social media react?
People had a lot to say. While some expressed their wishes, a few posted edited images of Elon Musk with his “miniature pet wooly mammoth.”
An X user wrote:
An individual posted, “Yes! I'm also still waiting for the micro hippopotamus.” A third commented, “Please make Jurassic Park.” A third added, “Omg, yes, I would love to play with one. I definitely would love a Dire Wolf, also. I love my wolf dog. The Dire wolves are beautiful.”
“Revolutionising history”
“The dire wolf has been extinct for over 10,000 years. These two wolves were brought back from extinction using genetic edits derived from a complete dire wolf genome, meticulously reconstructed by Colossal from ancient DNA found in fossils dating back 11,500 and 72,000 years,” Colossal Biosciences wrote in an X post.
The company added that it wants to “revolutionise history and be the first company to use CRISPR technology successfully in the de-extinction of previously lost species.”
Check out the video of Romulus and Remus howling:
“All you can do now is make something look superficially like something else”— not fully revive extinct species, Vincent Lynch, a biologist at the University at Buffalo, told the Associated Press. Lynch was not involved in the research.
