Have we really brought dire wolves back from extinction?

A biotech company claims it has facilitated the first howl of the dire wolf (an extinct canine) heard for 10,000 years. And there’s a video. A scientist holds up two white-coated cubs in his arms. Although their howling, really, is more like a series of yelps, they are meant to be the first of something big. They’re called Romulus and Remus, Colossal Biosciences, says. And they are the beginning of a new project to bring back from the grave a long-gone wolf species. A species that is often in fiction, often in fossil, but not often live and in colour.

The de-extinction (which is what Colossal, never notably underselling, calls its process) of the dire wolf was announced with a cover of Time magazine, a profile in the New Yorker, and much social media publicity. There are many good reasons why. The cubs are very sweet. They have big blue eyes. Colossal has told us we can watch them grow up on YouTube, where there will be a lot of footage of the two of them.