Scientists in Berlin announced the first successful embryo transfer in a white rhinoceros using a method that offers hope for saving the critically endangered northern white rhino subspecies from extinction.
The white rhinoceros includes two distinct subspecies, northern and southern. The last male northern white rhino died in 2018, with only two female members remaining. Neither are able to carry a calf to term. Southern white rhinos are more abundant.
The scientists turned to in-vitro fertilisation, harvesting the eggs of female northern white rhinos and using sperm from dead male rhinos of the subspecies to produce embryos that eventually will be transferred to southern white rhino surrogate mothers.
