After the last male northern white rhino, Sudan, died in 2018, the disappearance of the species looked imminent. Just two infertile female northern white rhinos - Fatu and Najin-survive and are under 24-hour armed protection at a conservation reservation in Kenya. But a new scientific advancement means the mother and daughter may not be the last of their kind.
Researchers from BioRescue, an international consortium backed by the German government that aims to halt extinctions, has performed the first successful embryo transfers in southern white rhinos, paving the way for the technique to be used for their rarer northern counterparts.
Scientists transferred two southern white rhino embryos into surrogates at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya in September, resulting in a pregnancy. While commonly used in humans, horses and cows, the method had never been used in rhinos. The father and the pregnant mother died after contracting a rare, unrelated bacterial infection when the foetus was 70 days old, but researchers said the pregnancy was proof that the technique could work.
This story is from the January 25, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the January 25, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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