Yet, even the largest dire wolf would pale in comparison to Epicyon haydeni. This colossal canine, whose very name translates to “more than a dog”, truly lived up to its epic monker, ...

For context, the gray wolf—the closest living relative of the dire wolf—has a genome of about 2.45 billion base pairs (the fundamental building blocks of DNA).

Based on the sequence of two new dire wolf genomes, the researchers at Colossal conclude that dire wolves formed a distinct branch within the canids over 2.5 million years ago.