“ was a crucial step on the path to saving northern white rhinos,” says Jan Stejskal, the director of international projects at ZOO Dvur Kralove, one of the partners collaborating with the Ol Pejeta Conservancy to save the species. The rhinos ate furiously, oblivious to the fact that they’re the last two of their kind on earth. This embryo is still a hybrid, but it’s a strong indicator that the research team might successfully be able to create a northern white rhino embryo. Although similar in appearance, the two are different species: The northern white, which hails from parts of Uganda, Chad, Sudan, and the Central African Republic, has a straight back, hairy ears, and a shorter horn-whereas the larger southern white rhino is from southern Africa. Then, in early July, news broke that scientists at Italy’s Avantea institute, a laboratory for biotechnology research and animal reproduction in Cremona, had successfully created the first-ever rhino embryo in a laboratory from a southern white and northern white rhinos. It was a plan these scientists had been hatching since 2014 after discovering that neither of the surviving females were able to conceive: Najin’s hind legs are too weak to carry a pregnancy to full term (a result of years on concrete in a zoo), and Fatu is infertile due to a uterine infection. While the world mourned the passing of Sudan, the last remaining male northern white rhino-who died of natural causes in March-a team of experts from around the world was preparing to create the first-ever rhino embryo using the frozen sperm of a northern white and the ovum of a southern white rhino. But it’s a tragedy that has the chance to be rewritten. They live in the 90,000-acre Ol Pejeta Conservancy in the Laikipia region of central Kenya, seemingly on borrowed time for their species. Fatu and Najin are both female, both unable to conceive. Let this sink in: There are only two northern white rhinos left in the world.
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