In his new film The Grey, Liam Neeson, who seems to kick more and more ass with every late-January release he’s in, leads a group stranded in the frozen wastelands of Alaska to safety by glass-knuckle boxing a fearsome pack of gray wolves. It looks, well, awesome.

But not all wolves are Liam Neeson-fighting killing machines. There are the dire wolves that watch over the Stark children in A Song of Fire and Ice. Or the Minnesota Timberwolves, who dealt the Wizards their eighth loss to open the NBA season.

And then there are the National Zoo’s litter of newborn maned wolf pups. The tiny brown furballs, currently residing at the Smithsonian’s Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va., are the zoo’s latest photo subjects. The level of cuteness is, well, ridiculous.