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Scientists made a big step in the effort to save the northern white rhino by creating the first test tube rhinoceros embryos.
Geneticists have created viable rhinoceros embryos using in vitro fertilization rhinoceros sperm and eggs of a related subspecies, the southern white rhinoceros. This advance, announced July 4 in the journal Nature Communications, gives hope for the future of the world's most endangered mammal, experts say.
Through unbridled poaching and habitat loss, rhinos have virtually disappeared from southern and central Africa. Conservationists have made numerous attempts to breed Northern White Rhinoceros in captivity, but most have failed.
The subspecies was declared extinct in March after the death of the last male named Sudan. Only two northern white rhinos remain, and both are infertile females in captivity. When Sudan died, the survival of the species became entirely dependent on the ability of humans to breed rhinos artificially.
Over the past three decades, scientists have collected sperm and eggs from some northern white rhinos. At the beginning of the year 2018, scientists from AVANTEA, an Italian biotechnology company specializing in livestock fertilization, used sperm preserved from Sudan to fertilize eggs of captive southern white rhinos.
"Our results are solid, reproducible and very promising" Thomas Hildebrandt, Head of Reproductive Management at the German Leibniz Institute for Zoological and Wildlife Research in Berlin, said in a statement:
Hildebrandt says that the embryos "have a very good chance of implanting a surrogate mother" which would be a captive southern white rhino. The subspecies is considered threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
The embryos will remain frozen cryogenically until Hildebrant and his colleagues discover how to properly implant valuable embryos.
Can we produce a thoroughbred? Hildebrandt also thinks that this technique can be used to create a genetically pure white rhinoceros, without any southern white rhinoceros DNA.
"We are well prepared to go to Kenya and collect oocytes [eggs] from the last two northern white rhinos." Although it is possible to create a handful of pure white rhinos from the north using this technique it would be difficult to create a self-sustaining population, "warn experts
.] The number of northern white rhinos and the limited amount of genetic material available to scientists" is probably not enough to maintain diversity genetics, "warns Nucharin So ngsasen, a biologist researcher at the Center for Species Survival of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
Songsasen, who was not involved in the study, said he is delighted that conservation biologists like they now have "a new tool in our toolbox" to save endangered species. "
However, that does not mean that technology can come back r species so close to extinction, she says. When populations are so small, consanguinity is unavoidable, resulting in the disappearance of the subspecies over time.
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