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. 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.
SOURCE: BBC
