I'm sure everyone has been hearing about the "cloned dire wolves". There has been a discussion about it on another forum I visit which I find frustrating. First, it's the whole "aren't they cute" attitude. Dire wolves aren't cute. They were very capable predators. They could take down mammoths, horses, camels, etc. Second, these created pups have NO dire wolf dna in them. The scientists simply altered gray wolf dna in 14 genes to read the same as those genes in dire wolf dna. So it's a manufactured gene mutation to create a wolf that MAY mimic some dire wolf looks. Third, the dire wolf is NOT a big wolf. Scientists had already discovered that dire wolves and gray wolves last common ancestor was 5.7 million years ago. Tigers and lions diverged about 5 million years ago - while they are similar, there is no mistaking on for the other. So, by mutating genes of a gray wolf to "mimic" those of a dire wolf is NOT creating dire wolves. Fourth, dire wolves have been determined to NOT be wolves at all. They were a wild dog species that did not interbreed with other canines. Dire wolves evolved in the Americas. Gray wolves evolved in Eurasia. So "creating" them using gray wolf dna is completely faulty. All these scientists did was GMO a gray wolf. There is nothing dire wolf in this at all. They don't even know what a dire wolf looked like so they cannot state with any certainty that the white coated wolf pups have any physical similarity to dire wolves. In addition, there is no evidence to suggest that dire wolves howled, formed similar packs as gray wolves, etc. This experiment is just as faulty as the alpha wolf study representing how domestic dogs behave. While dire wolf and gray wolf skeletal remains are similar, that does not mean they were the same. Then we get into the ethics of this. The company claims they are recreating the dire wolf (and potential other long-extinct animals) in order to "fill the void" left by their extinctions. If that is their purpose, then why create an animal that has been extinct for thousands of years. Why not create Northern white rhinos who have just gone extinct in the past few years? They would have actual rhino dna. The northern and southern white rhinos diverged only about 80,000 years ago. And there is still a very large void left by their extinction. In contrast, the dire wolf has been extinct for 12,000 years. The void they left has been completely filled by gray wolves and other predators. In fact, dire wolves most likely went extinct along with their prey - because the dire wolf could not adapt to the changes. In contrast, the gray wolf did not go extinct because it is highly adaptable. The saddest thing about this news is that this company has apprently been working towards recreating the red wolf, a species that went extinct in the wild in the 1980s. But instead of focusing and telling us about that work, they are playing around with gray wolf dna just to play. What happens if their gene tinkering makes these wolf pups susceptible to diseases that gray wolves are not currently susceptible too? They are apparently considering creating more of these mutated wolves and giving them to indigenous peoples to give in preserves on their lands. Which potentially gives them the ability to interact and breed with gray wolves. So any mutations could weaken the gray wolf population. The other alternative is to put them in zoos. What a life! Let's mutate these amazing animals and lock them up forever. I am disgusted with the lack of forethought and ethical behavior that these scientists have shown. And of course, this will only create another frenzy by people to have their own "dire wolf" so we will see another uptick in bad breeding and unwanted huskies (and likely malamutes and samoyeds).
Can only agree with you. I don't want to see Woolly Mammoths either - though at least they do have some dna for that one!
There was a PBS Nova episode on "The oldest dna". In it, scientists explained how it is impossible to take any of these ancient DNAs and use them to bring back long extinct animals. While they are good enough to give us basic information and compare to other DNA, they are too degraded to use for cloning purposes, etc. There is actual dire wolf DNAavaila
And that man caused to go extinct rather than an animal went extinct because it's food source died out...
