Someone posted another article that has a interview with an independent scientist, and I think it's rather illuminating.
Meachen is impressed with Colossal’s announcement but remains skeptical.
"I don't think they are actually dire wolves. I don't think what we have is dire wolves," Meachen told ABC News. "What we had is something new -- we have a mostly gray wolf that looks like a dire wolf."
Shapiro disagrees with that thinking.
"I think that the best definition of a species is if it looks like that species, if it is acting like that species, if it's filling the role of that species then you've done it," she said.
So their only criteria for "Is it a dire wolf," is yupp, looks like one and behaves like one, even though every real scientist is skeptical. This is, never the less, still impressive technology, but bringing back extinct animals seems more like a marketing gimic than a description of what they're actually doing.
Flawless logic. Never mind that no one alive has ever observed a dire wolf.