In March, died last male Northern white Rhino, leaving only two females of this subspecies. Not having any way to reproduce naturally, the rhinos went to the edge of extinction back to back. But some scientists want to be involved in the disappearance of the Northern white rhinos. An international group of scientists successfully created hybrid embryos of rhinos in the laboratory. The work was published recently in Nature Communications.
To create a hybrid rhinoceros embryos, the scientists removed the egg from the female rhinos closest related subspecies, the southern white rhinos. It was a risky procedure because the ovaries are located close to the “great arteries”, said the scientist, Thomas Hildebrandt, and breaking it, you can kill the animal. The researchers then fertilized the egg using the sperm collected from the now dead male Northern white rhinos, while they were still alive.
These hybrid embryos developed to the blastocyst stage of development in which scientists would transplant them into females. For the first time in history someone has successfully developed embryos rhinos to this state. Scientists have frozen hybrid embryo and try to implant them into surrogate females using in vitro fertilization in the future.
The scientists also hope to extract an egg from two living females of the rhinoceros, to create embryos in 100% Northern white unicorns. Maybe in three years is born the first calf of the Northern white Rhino.
In the laboratory created the first embryo rhinos. They will help to rescue the almost extinct species
Ilya Hel