Viable Embryos Created With Northern White Rhino Sperm in the Lab

Researchers froze the fertilized eggs, taken from southern white rhinos, in hopes of preserving the near-extinct northern subspecies.

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ABOVE: Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, died in March 2018. FLICKR, MAKE IT KENYA PHOTO/STUART PRICE

Embryos from the eggs of southern white rhinos and sperm of northern white rhinos have been created in the lab. The successful fertilization, reported July 4 in Nature Communications, is a small step toward researchers’ long-term goal of resurrecting the northern white rhino population, which is on the brink of extinction.

“These are the first in vitro produced rhinoceros embryos ever,” study coauthor Thomas Hildebrandt, head of the Department of Reproduction Management at the German Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, says in a statement. “They have a very high chance to establish a pregnancy once implanted into a surrogate mother.”

In vitro fertilization is the last hope to save the northern white rhinos, a subspecies of white rhinos, since the last male died in March. Only two female ...

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  • Ashley Yeager

    Ashley started at The Scientist in 2018. Before joining the staff, she worked as a freelance editor and writer, a writer at the Simons Foundation, and a web producer at Science News, among other positions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT. Ashley edits the Scientist to Watch and Profile sections of the magazine and writes news, features, and other stories for both online and print.

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