Though most people may know dire wolves from their many scene-stealing appearances in Game of Thrones, they didn’t spring straight from the mind of George R.R. Martin. In fact, scientists have known about the long-extinct creature since the mid-19th century. Until recently, it was widely believed that the dire wolf ( Canis dirus) was essentially a more muscular relative of the gray wolf ( Canis lupus), partially because their skeletons look so similar. But a new study published in Nature suggests that the two species share much less than their appearances imply. It all started when archaeologist Angela Perri, of Durham University in the UK, set off on an expedition across North America to locate dire wolf fossils from museum collections and see if she could extract DNA from them. Her endeavor was successful: As