Scientists have brought a breed of wolf back from extinction more than 12,000 years after it last walked the earth.

In what researchers described as the world’s first successful de-extinction, a US-based biotech firm has bred three dire wolves, a species popularised by the fantasy series Game of Thrones, by editing DNA recovered from ancient remains.

Colossal Biosciences Inc announced yesterday it had bred 80lb brothers Romulus and Remus – named after the fabled founders of Rome who were nurtured by a she-wolf – as well as a younger female pup called Khaleesi, which takes its name from a character in the television drama.

Footage of the wolves shows them whimpering as pups and frolicking in the snow at their fenced-in nature reserve at a secret US location.

Darya Tourzani, a reproductive biology scientist who worked on the project, described the breakthrough as “science fiction at its finest”.

Colossal describes de-extinction as the “process of generating an organism that both resembles and is genetically similar to an extinct species”.