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Environment

Embryos from the last two northern white rhinos set to be implanted

By Gitonga Njeru

14 January 2021

Northern white rhino Fatu (right) and southern white rhino Tauwo (left) are fed by a caretaker in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya

Northern white rhino Fatu (right) and southern white rhino Tauwo (left) with a caretaker in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya

DAI KUROKAWA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The northern white rhino may be able to avoid extinction for a while longer. Fertilised northern white rhino eggs are set to be implanted in rhino surrogates this year in the hope of producing offspring.

“There is still some hope left that we can save the white rhino species,” says Thomas Hildebrandt at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, who is part of an international team working to do …

Article amended on 26 January 2021

We have corrected which subspecies of rhino will have the embryos implanted.

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