“Come visit out city and see the dire wolf for yourself!”
Eco - conserving an extinct species. Except it’s not really conservation and it’s not really the dire wolf but people will do anything for money.
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The first time I heard of these new “dire wolves” was yesterday, in the lobby of a hotel on the news. I wasn’t surprised to see a forum thread created about it.
I don’t remember the news channel mentioning that these wolves are not actual dire wolves and just said that they have “resurrected an extinct species” and “recreated the dire wolve’s genome” (paraphrasing).
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If nothing else, the techniques being developed for experiments like the pseudo-dire wolf could be used to introduce genetic variability into extant species that are experiencing genetic bottlenecks. Black-footed Ferret comes to mind, where work has been done to capture lost genetic material from dead specimens to put into the existing breeding stock.
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If they want to fiddle around with extinct species, I don’t understand why they’d breed GMO white puppies instead of Tasmanian tigers or Passenger pigeons, or even a human-killed species from the same time that’s more likely to be viable in the wild, like the American horse or the Giant sloth. Heck, split the difference and mess with giant lemurs or elephant birds! We have enough trouble keeping farmers (well, and the Colville tribe, unfortunately, but that’s a whole can of worms) from going postal on wolves as it is.
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Way over-hyped. Interesting, of course, and calling these Dire Wolves may help them raise money, but these are slightly mutated Gray Wolves.
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I’m reminded of the “muttations” from the Hunger Games. Genetically modified animals, like Tracker Jackers , Mockingjays, killer squirrels, created for various nefarious purposes. Maybe that’s our future.
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I sure hope not!
That sounds like a world out of a Margaret Atwood novel: Oryx and Crake. Those wolvogs were especially chilling.
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I don’t know that just sounds like regular tourism to me. There’s nothing nature-y about this - it’s a fake animal grown in a lab.
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Oh I forgot about those! Certainly an interesting thought experiment.
I don’t have the energy to gather all my thoughts on this right now, but above everything else I just hate the misinformation. So many people who just don’t know any better think that these are actual dire wolves. I generally don’t like it when some people push a false/exaggerated reality onto others who are likely to believe it without question.
Hank Green has made a nice video on the topic that I haven’t quite finished yet. He makes some very good points.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar0zgedLyTw
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who cares …
But - no worries - we can reverse extinction - easy!!
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There is a place for analogues to serve useful ecological functions. However I suspect that is not what this is. Having now caught up and read what this actually is, I’m incredibly disappointed and completely unsurprised.
In their own words -
Colossal says its dire wolf work had key differences. Scientists first analyzed the genome of the dire wolves contained in the ancient tooth and skull. Comparing those genomes to that of the gray wolf—the dire wolf’s closest living relative—they identified 20 differences in 14 genes that account for the dire wolf’s distinguishing characteristics, including its greater size, white coat, wider head, larger teeth, more powerful shoulders, more-muscular legs, and characteristic vocalizations, especially howling and whining.
They picked and chose what they thought a dire wolf is! This is really no different to a dog show where some bloke prates on about how X and Y makes their breed perfect for life outside the ring, without having a clue what that actually involves.
Next.
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They say that the grey wolf is the closest living relative of the dire wolf. That’s not really true. Rather, the dire wolf is equally related to all extant members of the subtribe Canina. Canina includes jackals, African wild dogs, dholes, wolves (not including maned and Falkland Islands wolves), domestic dogs and coyotes.
I believe that it convergently evolved traits similar to the grey wolf. Or perhaps both the dire and grey wolves retained traits lost in other Canina, but I think it was mostly convergent evolution.
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Because puppies are good pets and they want money.
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Sure, just one of the many lies.
Colossal wasn’t the one who called this ecotourism here, it was a user higher up on this thread.
I was fooled by it at first.
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Those dog/human hybrid things they made from the genes of the dead tributes at the end of the first Hunger Games were definitely the creepiest. And I can’t help but wonder if some real life mad scientist out there is planning to mix human and animal DNA to create some sort of abomination…
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Mixing animal and human DNA is already done in order to produce pigs with organs that can be used in humans.
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