"De-extinction" takes center stage as environmentalists express dismay over erosion of the Endangered Species Act ...

Dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus ... African jackals are divided into two species — the black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas), native to eastern and southern Africa, and the side-striped jackal ...

With this breakthrough, humans are tampering with evolution beyond its historical use of artificial selection, or breeding ...

By Degen Pener Deputy Editor Four-year-old Colossal — which has referred to itself as the De-Extinction Company — says that the dire wolves are just the first of a number of extinct animals ...

The Colossal team thus engineered two other genes that shut down black and red pigmentation, leading to the dire wolf’s characteristic light color without causing any harm in the edited gray ...

One of the subspecies of black rhinos, it was declared extinct ... Publicly funded science was a big part of the reason the dire wolf was Colossal’s first project, Shapiro said.

Genetically modifying gray wolves to resemble the extinct dire wolf may be an impressive scientific feat, but it’s no substitute for protecting living species that are currently at risk.

Ganzert, chief executive of the American Humane Society, gushed on Colossal’s website. The dire wolf genome likely differs from that of the gray wolf in millions or tens of millions of ways.

The creation of genetically modified grey wolves that are claimed to resemble extinct dire wolves has been criticised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Colossal ...