'Amazing': New embryo made of nearly extinct rhino species
Source: AP
By CARA ANNA
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Researchers say they have successfully created another embryo of the nearly extinct northern white rhino in a global effort to keep the species alive. Just two animals remain, and both are female.
The viable embryo is just the third to be created in a lab with eggs taken from the females and inseminated with frozen sperm from dead males, according to Wednesday’s statement. The embryos are stored in liquid nitrogen to be transferred into a surrogate mother — a southern white rhino — in the coming months.
“It’s amazing to see that we will be able to reverse the tragic loss of this subspecies through science,” said Kenya’s wildlife minister, Najib Balala, in the statement by the Kenya Wildlife Service and conservationists from Kenya, the Czech Republic, Germany and Italy.
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.
FILE - In this Friday, Aug. 23, 2019 file photo, female northern white rhinos Fatu, 19, right, and Najin, 30, left, the last two northern white rhinos on the planet, are fed some carrots by a ranger in their enclosure at Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Kenya. Researchers said Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2020 that they have successfully created another embryo of the nearly extinct northern white rhino, just the third to be created in a lab with eggs taken from the females and inseminated with frozen sperm from dead males, in a global effort to keep the species alive. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)
Read more: https://apnews.com/2a445286bf6b0e0f8c5a871775376f27
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