Author: Leah Rosenbaum / Source: Science News
The nearly extinct northern white rhino may not be completely lost.
For the first time, rhinoceros embryos have been made in the lab. Scientists injected preserved sperm from a male northern white rhino into eggs of female southern white rhino, a closely related subspecies.
The embryos were incubated until the cells begin to differentiate, a stage at which they can be implanted into a surrogate mother, researchers report July 4 in Nature Communications.The new feat is “one of the really crucial steps” to eventually producing new rhino calves, says study coauthor Jan Stejskal, coordinator of northern white rhino conservation efforts at the Safari Park Dvůr Králové in the Czech Republic. Eventually, researchers hope to implant similar embryos into female southern white rhinos or hybrid northern-southern white rhinos.
If it works, it could provide hope for bringing back a species on the brink of extinction. Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, died in March. Only two females remain in Kenya, both in captivity and unable to reproduce naturally. In comparison, there are more than 20,000 southern white rhinos left.
In the new study, the scientists used eggs from female southern white rhinos and sperm preserved from three male northern white rhinos. While the new embryos are a hybridized northern-southern white rhino mix, the ability to create them is “a…
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