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 ...
