Scientists and animal conservationists are now watching and waiting to see whether eggs removed from the last two female northern white rhinos will develop into embryos.
The eggs were fertilized with sperm from the now-dead last male, but it will be about 10 days before it’s known whether the eggs have become embryos.
“We expect some of them will develop into an embryo,” Cesare Galli, a founder of Avantea and an expert in animal cloning, said on Monday.
Wildlife experts and veterinarians hope that the species can reproduce via a surrogate mother rhino.
Galli, a founder of the company, said that to improve chances for a species’ continuation, it is better not to “get to the last two individuals before you use this technology.”
Decades of poaching decimated the northern white rhino’s numbers.
The ultimate goal is to create a herd of at least five animals that could be returned to their natural habit in Africa. That could take decades.
Sudan was the last of his kind to be born in the wild, in the country he was named after.
Other rhinos — the southern white rhino and the black rhino — are also prey for poachers, who kill them for their horns to supply illegal markets in parts of Asia.
