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The dire wolves known to paleontologists, however, are different from the creatures that can now be viewed in Colossal videos gamboling in an open field.

The skeleton was unearthed 2 years ago by a commercial paleontologist in Colorado’s fossil-rich Morrison Formation, then put up for auction earlier this year.

“There has never been a study of this kind, ever,” says lead author Martin Qvarnström, a paleontologist at Uppsala University.

Wings may be the obvious choice when studying the connection between dinosaurs and birds, but a pair of Yale paleontologists prefer drumsticks.

For many years, paleontologists have debated what these prehistoric big cats would have looked like based on their fossilized bones.