Northern white rhinos are the second largest land mammals on Earth, yet the magnificent creatures are on the brink of extinction, with just two females remaining.
Now, scientists have created two new embryos in a lab using the eggs of one of these females and the sperm from a deceased male, bringing the total number of viable embryos to five.
The other three were created in 2019, using eggs and sperm from the same rhinos.
The team hopes to implant the embryos into a surrogate mother within the next three years using an IVF technique, and bring white rhinos back from the brink of extinction.
Northern white rhinos were once found in southern Chad, the Central African Republic, southwestern Sudan, northern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and northwestern Uganda, and as recently as 1960, there were more than 2,000 remaining, according to WWF.
However, poaching has led to their extinction in the wild, with just two known individuals left.
WWF explained: ‘Uncontrolled hunting in the colonial era was historically the major factor in the decline of white rhinos. Today, poaching for the illegal trade in their horns is the major threat.
‘Powdered horn is used in traditional Asian medicine as a supposed cure for a range of illnesses – from hangovers to fevers and even cancer.’
There are no known living male northern white rhinos on Earth, and just two females – a mother and daughter living in Kenya, called Najin and Fatu.
Sadly, neither of these females can carry a calf to term themselves. To counter this issue, researchers from the BioRescue team at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany have created five embryos using eggs from Fatu, and sperm from a deceased male called Sudan, who died in March 2018.
The five embryos are being stored in liquid nitrogen at a laboratory in Cremona, in Italy’s Lombardy region, waiting to be transferred into a surrogate southern rhino mother.
The team hopes to be able to deliver its first northern white rhino calf in three years and a wider population in the next two decades.
Thomas Hildebrandt, leader of the BioRescue project, said: ‘We are under time constraint because we want really a transfer of the social knowledge from the last existing northern white rhinos to a calf.’
The positive news follows a challenging year for the team, who were forced to delay their research amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr Hildebrandt said: ‘2020 was really a hard test for all of us, but giving up is not the mentality of any true scientist.
However, poaching has led to their extinction in the wild, with just two known individuals left.
WWF explained: ‘Uncontrolled hunting in the colonial era was historically the major factor in the decline of white rhinos. Today, poaching for the illegal trade in their horns is the major threat.
Following their retrieval, the five embryos are being stored in liquid nitrogen at a laboratory in Cremona, in Italy’s Lombardy region, waiting to be transferred into a surrogate southern rhino mother
‘Powdered horn is used in traditional Asian medicine as a supposed cure for a range of illnesses – from hangovers to fevers and even cancer.
‘The recent surge has been primarily driven by the demand for horn by upper-middle class citizens in Vietnam. As well as its use in medicine, rhino horn is bought and consumed purely as a symbol of wealth.
‘Hundreds of white rhinos have been killed annually in recent years. They are particularly vulnerable to hunting, because they are relatively unaggressive and occurs in herds.’
