Dire wolves were not close relatives of gray wolves. They last shared a common ancestor more than 5 million years ago. What Colossal has done is make something new and slapped a dire wolf sticker on it, as if an organism equals a hypothetical genome.

Whole-genome duplication reshapes adaptation: autotetraploid Arabidopsis arenosa leverages its high genetic variation to compensate for selection constraints. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.01.646563v1

Genomic basis of adaptation to serpentine soil in two Alyssum species shows convergence with Arabidopsis across 20 million years of divergence https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.27.640498v1