Pittsburgh native Joe Manganiello poses for photos with dire wolves

Pittsburgh native Joe Manganiello is often photographed holding his beloved chihuahua Bubbles. But recent photos show him getting close to a much bigger — and once extinct — dog. 

Manganiello on Tuesday shared photos of himself on Instagram posing with the dire wolf puppies that Colossal Bioscience says they've effectively brought back from extinction. 

Manganiello told People that Colossal CEO Ben Lamm contacted him because of his passion for biology and genetics — and because he played a werewolf for several years on the show "True Blood." 

"We talked, and then I was invited to the laboratory in Dallas and then from there, I was invited to invest and actually join the board of advisors," he told People. 

"So I got to meet [co-founder] George Church and hold an 11,000-year-old apex predator," he added. "I mean, come on. There is no bucket list for things like this."

Manganiello also acknowledged that the public may be concerned about trying to bring back an extinct species. It sounds a lot like a certain movie franchise that didn't end well.

Still, he called Colossal the "good guys," saying the company is also working to protect and conserve the environment.    

"This is a part of our evolution, I believe, as a planet," he told People. 

Colossal says it has brought back dire wolves

Dire wolves, popularized by "Game of Thrones," aren't just mythical creatures. They used to roam the world but have been extinct for over 12,500 years. 

Colossal's scientists said they used DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a 72,000-year-old skull to edit a donor genome from the gray wolf, which is the dire wolf's closest living relative. The company says it cloned high quality cell lines into donor eggs and performed an embryo transfer into a surrogate mother. Three pups — Romulus, Remus and Khaleesi — were born. 

But independent scientists are skeptical. Vincent Lynch, a biologist at the University at Buffalo who was not involved in the research, told the Associated Press that "all you can do now is make something look superficially like something else"— not fully revive extinct species.

The wolves are living on a 2,000-plus acre location that's surrounded by a 10-foot-tall fence. Colossal says the preserve is certified by the American Humane Society and registered with the United States Department of Agriculture.