The genetically modified grey wolves (NOT dire wolves, those were in a DIFFERENT GENUS) are still wild animals and really shouldn't be kept as pets. We already invented a pet wolf and they're called DOGS.

Shut the fuck up about the dire wolf thing nobody "brought back" anything and you're all gullible dumbasses

Or, if you look at my blog you'll see me disputing Colossal Liars claims and I posted this purely because as a vet tech i loathe Cesar Milan with every fiber of my being and was shocked/horrified that we shared an opinion which is "you can't fucking correctly handle a small breed dog you definitely can't deal with a fucking wolf"

I worked at a shelter at the height of people getting huskies thanks to GOT. People wanted a "dire wolf". And the same people willing to drop an absurd $15k on a fluffy frenchie will absolutely try to purchase themselves a "dire wolf".

Okay so this question misses two things: the difference between major archive warning tags and other tags, and the "Choose not to use Archive Warnings" label.

If someone has not tagged the major archive warnings (Underage, Rape/Non-Con, Graphic Depictions of Violence, and Major Character Death), but they've tagged it with "Choose not to use Archive Warnings", and I run into one of those major archive warnings, then I will not be angry or annoyed, and whether I keep reading will depend entirely on how much I"m enjoying the story.

If someone has not tagged those major archive warnings, tagged with "No Archive Warnings Apply", and then I run into one of the archive warning tags' content, I will be pissed AF, stop reading, and immediately report the fic to AO3. Because they misused the tagging system.

If it's NOT a major archive warning but something like... a ship, or a characterization take, or whatever, then probably I'd be annoyed but whether or not I'll back out of the fic depends on if I'm enjoying it anyway.

I still think this tech has the potential to be helpful in a conservation context.... but it says a A LOT that these "dire wolves" look far more like something you'd see in Game of Thrones than any of the most likely reconstructions proposed by scientists who've studied the fossil record.

These pups might get more robust as they age, but right now I'm not seeing anything to get excited about. I just can't help but suspect that this species was chosen specifically bc the public already has the idea of "dire wolf = gray wolf + big", and that this company is using relatively minor CRISPR editing to give the false impression that they're recreating anything that might have conceivably lived 10,000 years ago.

Again, I think this tech is interesting and merits further development (and if jurassic park is the only way they can do that, then, I guess that's what's happening), but it's still extremely misleading to parade these animals around like they've actually 100% cloned a dire wolf.

Really reminds me of Jurassic Park. In the books, Crichton made it very clear that they didn't actually clone dinosaurs. They just combined DNA to make an animal that looked like what people EXPECT a dinosaur to look like, because it turned out that actual cloned dinosaurs were really quite dull and spent most of their time hiding.

Aencyon dirus isn't closely related to modern wolves at all either so it doesn't make any sense to start with a gray wolf. (According to wikipedia they were isolated from the gray wolf lineage for over 5 million years.) we thought they were in genus Canis but turns out it was just convergent evolution and they are a whole other thing

now that I actually read the article, I realize that the lede was buried-- they genetically modified this wolf, and they also cloned 4 critically endangered red wolves

I think the TIME article is really irresponsible in acting like the pups are dire wolves when they don't contain any dire wolf DNA. The "dire wolf" pups are literally just gray wolve engineered to look more like the creatures on Game of Thrones (literally--one of the pups is named Khaleesi)

I remain cautiously optimistic though, because it seems like they are doing actually useful research for preserving existing animals and then putting a Jurassic Park type spin on it for the media.

The Dire wolf thing honestly might just be an attention-grabber to get money off of people that know nothing about ecosystems, and the red wolf might be the actual real purpose of the research. If they've figured out the genetic basis of body size and certain "wolfy" behaviors in wolves, they could make it possible to bring coyote-red wolf hybrids into the red wolf breeding pool without sacrificing the wolf traits

Y'all, just think about guys like Elon Musk. Rich tech bros with a 5 yr old boy's idea of what is cool. This stuff is perfectly calibrated to siphon off some of those techbro's billions, while on the side, being helpful to conservation

Just look at the traits of the altered pups that are highlighted in the article: snout, jaw and limb thickness and heaviness, vocalizations, body size. All key traits that separate red wolves and coyotes.

Here's what the article says:

Recently, Bridgett vonHoldt, a Colossal scientific adviser and an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University, and Kristin Brzeski, an associate professor of wildlife science and conservation at Michigan Tech, discovered populations of canids along the coasts of Louisiana and Texas whose DNA included both coyote genes and red wolf ghost alleles. The four red wolves the Colossal scientists created used that natural genetic reservoir to produce what they call the first Ghost Wolf, with an eye to eventually fortifying the red wolf species with more such young carrying a variety of genes.

They're using this technology to bring genetic diversity from red wolf/coyote hybrids back into the red wolf gene pool. As soon as I read "red wolves" I suspected this might be what was happening, and I was right. This could help fix the genetic bottleneck in red wolves and make a real chance for the species to actually return.

this approach is honestly genius

@thatstupiddeer you mentioned being frustrated about this so you might find this take interesting :O

these tags are gold omg

It's a misconception that the mimics are hunting humans when they trail along at the back of hiking groups.

In fact, the creature you'll find suddenly walking beside you and acting as if they've always been there is almost certainly a juvenile, as the adults lose the ability when they reach reproductive age.

Recent studies suggest the forest mimic is less like a preying mantis (mimicry as a hunting strategy) and more like a cuckoo (mimicry as a protective strategy for their young). Adult forest mimics will leave their offspring near a group of hikers while they forage during the day, and retrieve them near trailheads in the evening. Groups of hikers provide safety from predators and allow the parents of the species the freedom to forage more widely.

For this reason, the traditional advice to never let a mimic into your vehicle is still very important, as this would separate the young mimic from its mother. If a juvenile forest mimic does follow your group to the parking lot, you can keep it entertained with trail snacks, dad jokes, and simple goofs. The mother will usually collect them shortly before sunset.

When you notice the woods around the trailhead go silent and feel a sense of nameless foreboding, find an excuse to avert your attention from the juvenile so it can sneak back into the forest to rejoin its mother, convinced it's fooled another party of unsuspecting humans.

surprisingly wholesome takes from the cryptid community here

@monstrousproductions

Uuuuugh, I didn’t think he could become even more of a scumbag and yet here we are. I need to harass them for my money they still owe me from 2021 and delete all my shit from there.

#“in the vicinity of the landlocked ACT”#it it no where near the vicinity of#theyre like 3 hours away from each other#also. yuin mention 🎉

By Australian standards that's vicinity. Personally I think they should've picked up the whole ACT and moved it to the coast.

Even better: ACT was built on land that no one wanted. It’s either stinking hot and maybe on fire, or freezing and maybe snowing with very little in between. Once you’re outside the actual city, if I’m remembering correctly, it’s just dry paddocks full of sheep and a highway.

"Well, we need a capital city and nobody can play nice about where it goes so we'll just make a whole new territory for it. In, uh... any land that either of you don't mind giving up? You're not using that spot there, NSW? We can have it? Okay then."

"Hey has anyone else noticed that our capital city is in an absolutely dogshit location?"

Of course, in fairness, most of the non-desert parts of the southeast half of Australia are dry paddocks and a highway.

'Average insurance investigator is a deductive genius' is a statistical error. average insurance investigators investigate at the level of a regular person. Nathan Bitchass Ford and James Petty Sterling, who are freaks living to spite and out-mastermind each other, are outliers and should not have been counted