Eggs Collected From The Last Two Northern White Rhinos On Earth Could Save The Species
Veterinarians harvested 10 eggs from the last two northern white rhinos on the planet. The two female rhinos are the only ones left from the species after a 45-year-old male rhino named Sudan passed away at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya Najin & Fatu - Save The Rhino.
Veterinarians harvested 10 eggs from the last two northern white rhinos on the planet. This was the first time this procedure had ever been attempted on the species.
The two female rhinos are the only ones left from the species after a 45-year-old male rhino named Sudan passed away at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya.
The team successfully gathered the eggs from the two female rhinos, Najin and Fatu. The outcome was made possible by years of research, testing and practising the procedure.
"Both the technique and the equipment had to be developed entirely from scratch," Professor Thomas Hildebrandt from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany said in a press release. "We were able to harvest a total of 10 oocytes - five from Najin and five from Fatu - showing that both females can still provide eggs and thus help to save these magnificent creatures."
**BREAKING NEWS** Scientists have successfully harvested 10 eggs from the last two northern white rhino in the world - 5 each from Najin and Fatu! The procedure gets us one step closer to saving these iconic animals@OlPejeta
¡ª Helping Rhinos ? (@HelpingRhinos) August 23, 2019
Read more: https://t.co/vstVXp4Twe pic.twitter.com/GZdpC4Qczl
The egg extraction is to keep the northern white rhinos from becoming extinct. Najin and Fatu, the two rhinos, are not able to carry a pregnancy themselves. Researchers will attempt to artificially inseminate their eggs with frozen sperm from a northern white rhino. If the researchers can produce embryos, they would be transferred to a female southern white rhino who would act as a surrogate.
