No, Jon Snow isn't recruiting for the Night's Watch, and no, you can't adopt Ghost just yet.

But the internet did briefly lose its hivemind when biotech company Colossal Biosciences announced the birth of three "dire wolf" pups with names straight out of Westeros (and Ancient Rome): Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi.

The pups were hailed as a de-extinction miracle, sparking excitement, discourse and memes, but the story was also met with many scientists and paleontologists giving the news a side-eye.

So what's actually going on here? Are we one CRISPR edit away from the Museum of Natural History coming alive, or are people just renaming regular wolves and hoping no one asks too many questions?

Let's break down Colossal Biosciences and its viral de-extinction projects that've dominated headlines this week.

What is Colossal Biosciences and What Is Their Mission?

Colossal Biosciences is a Dallas, Texas-based biotech startup co-founded in 2021 to realize Harvard geneticist George Church and tech entrepreneur Ben Lamm's vision of "de-extinction." Their marketing pitches claim that their team uses gene editing, mostly CRISPR, to "bring back" extinct animals, like Jurassic Park, but with venture capital funding.

The company raised eyebrows (and cash) thanks to a glitzy investor list that includes billionaire investor Peter Thiel, the Winklevoss twins and even In-Q-Tel, the CIA's own venture capital arm.

Since its launch, Colossal has promoted itself as a kind of "Noah's Ark 2.0," focused on reversing extinction for biodiversity and ecological restoration. Its YouTube channel describes it as "the world’s first de-extinction company," an ambitious tagline that the company appears bent on realizing.

What's With Colossal Biosciences Claiming To Have Brought Back Dire Wolves?

On April 7th, 2025, Colossal Biosciences announced it had "brought back" the dire wolf. The pups, named Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi (the first two named after the wolves from the myth about the founding of Rome and last inspired by Daenerys Targaryen from GoT), were reportedly born after scientists edited 14 genes in gray wolf cells to express 20 traits seen in the extinct dire wolf, including size, skull structure and immune responses. The embryo was then implanted in a surrogate dog.

Colossal Biosciences co-founder Ben Lamm even went on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast to talk about his company, its achievements and the Dire Wolf Pup announcement.

But the science-fiction marketing soon met with a fact-check. While dire wolves (Aenocyon dirus) were real, terrifying apex predators around 13,000 years ago, they're not closely related to modern gray wolves.

In fact, they split off the evolutionary tree millions of years ago. Some people argue that since the pups were not made by splicing ancient DNA but rather by tweaking grey wolf genes, the extinct race was less "resurrected" than it was "mimicked."

The Game of Thrones connection? Pure branding. The books' and show's dire wolves were giant, snow-colored companions with borderline magical loyalty. In reality, dire wolves were sandy, short-haired creatures that resembled the modern jackal more than they did Ghost.

Critics online were quick to point this out, with meme accounts, Reddit paleontology threads and even science communicators calling the announcement misleading at best.

What Other Projects Has Colossal Biosciences Undertaken?

Still, the biotechnology company's achievements are nothing to scoff at. They've been set to the task of "de-extinction" for years and have several other projects already underway.

Their flagship effort is the woolly mammoth project. They aim to create a cold-resistant hybrid that could roam the Arctic tundra like it's 10,000 BCE by editing Asian elephant genomes to include mammoth traits.

Scientists have bred woolly mice on their journey to bring back the mammoth. https://t.co/95Xlx37Qz8 pic.twitter.com/KcG7ChMIGD

— TIME (@TIME) March 4, 2025

To this end, scientists also created the viral "woolly mice," which are lab mice that were genetically edited to have fluffy, mammoth-like fur.

Fan art exploded across X upon their unveiling, with users like @Miurgen and @comdost_vtuber posting fan illustrations inspired by the adorable creatures.

Colossal Biosciences has also teamed up with the University of Melbourne to "de-extinct" the thylacine, or the Tasmanian tiger, by editing dunnart genomes (a tiny marsupial cousin) to resurrect Australia's long-lost striped beast.

And yes, there's a dodo project too. Working with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, they're sequencing dodo DNA and developing avian surrogates to (hopefully) bring back the extinct island bird last seen in the 1600s.

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For the full history of Colossal Biosciences, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.