Zoologist Philip Seddon from the University of Otago in New Zealand explained the animals are "genetically modified grey wolves". Colossal publicised its efforts to use similar cutting edge genetic techniques to bring back extinct animals including the woolly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger.

Scientists from the Dallas-based biotech company Colossal Biosciences have brought three dire wolf pups into the world, reviving a species that went extinct over 12,000 years ago. CNN reported that they used ancient DNA,

A genetically modified wolf juvenile, one of three successfully bred by reconstructing a genome from the ancient DNA of fossils from dire wolves that had been extinct for over 12,500 years by Colossal Biosciences,