27 August 2019 10:48 am
DPA, 26th AUGUST, 2019-Just days after eggs were harvested from the last two remaining northern white rhinos, they have been successfully inseminated, an international consortium of scientists said on Monday.
“This is the next critical step in hopefully creating viable embryos,” they said in a statement.
Of the 10 oocytes (immature eggs) extracted, seven matured and were artificially inseminated via Intra Cytoplasm Sperm Injection (ICSI) in a laboratory in Cremona, Italy on August 25.
Frozen sperm from two deceased northern white rhino bulls, Suni and Saut, was used in the procedure.
“We were surprised by the high rate of maturation achieved,” said Cesare Galli, who led the fertilization procedure.
If embryos are produced, they will be frozen and transferred to southern white rhino surrogates.
Neither of the northern white rhino females, Najin and Fatu, are able to carry a pregnancy due to various health reasons. The last male northern white rhino died in 2018, but sperm from him and others was cryo-preserved in the hope that assisted reproduction techniques could be used to rescue the species.