There are only two left northern white rhinos on the planet, but a new scientific advance is giving this species hope Danger of extinction. And a group of experts has achieved this first pregnancy of a rhino test tube fertilization.
The scientists performed the procedure on southern white rhinos, a species close relative with those from the north. They created the embryo in a laboratory and managed to transfer it to a surrogate mother. The next step, they say, is to repeat the procedure, but with embryos northern white rhinos.
The International Species Science and Conservation Consortium BioRescue has successfully achieved the world’s first pregnancy from a northern white rhino after embryo transfer, which paves the way to the northern white rhinothe Leibniz Institute for Zoological and Natural Research (Leibniz-IZW) announced in a statement.
The southern white rhino embryos were created in vitro from collected eggs and sperm and transferred on September 24 to Curra, a surrogate mother for the southern white rhino, in the Ol Pejeta Reserve, in Kenya.
Curra died on November 25 due to poisoning due to systemic clostridial infection and subsequent poisoning by the bacterial toxin after heavy rainfall flooded the space he was in and allowed clostridial spores to reach the surface from deeper layers deep within the soil.
The BioRescue team, led by Leibniz-IZWsubsequently confirmed a 70-day pregnancy in Curra with a well-developed and viable male fetus measuring 6.4 cm in length.
These scientific advances pave the way to apply the same technique to the northern white rhino, a species that is seriously threatened with extinction, he points out.
A just-in-time achievement to save the northern white rhinos
“It has taken us many years to achieve this. And we are overwhelmed that we now have proof that this technique works perfectly,” he said. Thomas Hildebrandtproject director of BioREscue and department head of reproduction management at Leibniz-IZW.
He added that “it is bitter that this milestone is confirmed in such tragic circumstances with the death of the surrogate mother, Curra, and her calf,” but he was convinced that this validation of the concept “is a turning point for the survival of the rhino.” “Northern white and the health of Central African ecosystems.”
The expert confirms that this test comes just in time to achieve a pregnancy with an embryo of the northern white rhino, a subspecies of which there are only two living specimens in the entire world: the females. Najin and Fatu, mother and daughterwho live in the Ol Pejeta reserve.
Living cells from twelve different northern white rhinos are stored in liquid nitrogen
As part of the species conservation research project BioRescue Since 2019, thirty embryos have already been produced and cryopreserved. northern white rhinowhich remain stored in liquid nitrogen at minus 196 degrees Celsius in Berlin and Cremona, waiting to be transferred to surrogate mothers of the southern subspecies.
Now that there is scientific evidence that it works, the BioRescue team, which has funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research of around six million euros over six years, can carry out the first embryo transfer using an embryo northern white rhino.
According to Hildebrandt, although embryos can be stored in liquid nitrogen for a long time, there is an urgent need to deliver a northern white rhino calf into the world. years.
‘We want the descendants to be able to live with it for years Najin and Fatu to learn the social behavior of their species,” Hildebrandt emphasizes.
He recalled that the technique of embryo transfer is well established for humans and domestic animals, such as horses and cows, but in the case of rhinos “It was completely unknown territory and everything had to be devised, developed, rehearsed and tested, from the approach to the Procedural protocols and necessary equipmentso that it could be used safely.