FLICKR, IIP PHOTO ARCHIVEA southern white rhino at the San Diego Zoo named Victoria is pregnant, the zoo announced yesterday (May 17).
“The confirmation of this pregnancy through artificial insemination represents an historic event for our organization but also a critical step in our effort to save the northern white rhino,” Barbara Durrant, the director of reproductive sciences at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, says in a statement.
Southern white rhinos number in the thousands, but only two northern white rhinos, both female, still exist and are unable to bear calves. The last male northern white rhino died in March. If researchers can successfully artificially inseminate a southern white rhino with sperm from a male southern white rhino now, they may be able to inseminate female white rhinos with sperm and egg cells developed from preserved skin cells of northern white rhinos in the ...
