Can lab-made embryos revive rhino species?
CREMONA, Italy — Scientists announced Wednesday they have succeeded in creating two embryos of the near-extinct northern white rhino as part of an international effort to save the species, which is down to just two animals worldwide, both of them female.
The embryos, created in the lab with eggs taken from the females and frozen sperm from dead males, are stored in liquid nitrogen, to be transferred into a surrogate mother — a southern white rhino — soon.
“We achieved an important milestone on a rocky road which allows us to plan the future steps in the rescue program of the northern white rhino,” said Thomas Hildebrandt of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany.
The institute is part of an international consortium of scientists and conservationists that has been planning and developing the procedure for years.
The ultimate goal is to create a herd of at least five animals that could be returned to their natural habitat in Africa. That could take decades.
Decades of poaching have taken a heavy toll on the northern white rhino and other rhino species. The animals are killed for their horns, which have long been used as carving material and prized in traditional Chinese medicine for their supposed healing properties.
The last male northern white rhino was a 45-year-old named Sudan, who gained fame in 2017 when he was listed as “The Most Eligible Bachelor in the World” on the Tinder dating app as part of a fundraising effort. Sudan, named for the country where he was born in the wild, was euthanized in 2018 because of agerelated ills.
A team of scientists extracted five immature egg cells from each of the remaining females, Najin and Fatu, who live at a conservancy in Kenya.