Published23 minutes ago
A fertility breakthrough has offered hope for saving the northern white rhino from extinction – there are only two of the animals left on the planet.
Scientists have achieved the world’s first IVF rhino pregnancy, successfully transferring a lab-created rhino embryo into a surrogate mother.
The procedure was carried out with southern white rhinos, a closely related sub-species of northern whites.
The next step is to repeat this with northern white embryos.
“To achieve the first successful embryo transfer in a rhino is a huge step,” said Susanne Holtze, a scientist at Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany, which is part of the Biorescue project, an international consortium trying to save this species.
“But now I think with this achievement, we are very confident that we will be able to create northern white rhinos in the same manner and that we will be able to save the species.”
Northern white rhinos were once found across central Africa, but illegal poaching, fuelled by the demand for rhino horn, wiped out the wild population.
Now only two rhinos remain: two females, Najin and her daughter Fatu. Both of the former zoo animals are kept under tight security at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.
Unable to reproduce, the species is technically extinct. But now the Biorescue team has turned to radical fertility science to bring these animals back from the brink.
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