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Are the newly created dire wolves more similar to actual dire wolves from the past or to gray wolves? (lemm.ee)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hi there, I'm not familiar in this space at all which is why I'm asking in this community to understand it better from a science perspective.

So the way I understand it they haven't created a 100% exact genetical copy of a dire wolf since they don't have a complete DNA sequence that's fully preserved and intact.

Apparently they made 20 edits to the Gray Wolf genes which I assume aren't all the edits needed for a fully genetically identical dire wolf.

So my question is if that means that the wolves they created are overall still more similar to a gray wolf when you could go back in time and compared them to actual dire wolves. Or did they actually make the core changes that are so significant that the wolves overall actually are more similar to actual dire wolves and therefore naturally fit into that ecosystem niche that gray wolves don't?

And even if they're more similar to actual dire wolves than gray wolves and naturally fit into that ecosystem niche I wonder if they would still have some perceivable differences. Like if we could travel back in time and compare them to the dire wolves created by evolution, is it likely that we would find any differences or are these only neglectable genetical differences that don't have any effects on any perceivable aspect in their nature such as behavior, appearance, cognition, capabilities etc. or would there still be small differences that would differ from the majority (individual differences neglected of course)?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

I think hank green has a pretty nuanced take on the subject:

https://youtu.be/Ar0zgedLyTw