Hybrid white-rhino embryos created in last-ditch effort to stop extinction

[Techno-Druid]

(Source)

DNA of northern white rhino — of which only two remain — mixed with that of close subspecies in a bid towards growing population using surrogates.

Researchers have created hybrid rhino embryos as part of a 'Hail-Mary' attempt to rescue the northern white rhinoceros from all but certain extinction.

The embryos — which have now been frozen — contain DNA from northern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) and a close relative subspecies and could be implanted into surrogates to yield animals that are a mix of both. The work is reported in a Nature Communications paper published on 4 July1.

The research “is an impressive step forward for the whole field”, says stem-cell biologist Jeanne Loring, at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Her team hopes to use stem-cell technology to repopulate the rhinos.

A victim to poaching, the northern white rhino population is now down to only two females, making it the planet’s most endangered mammal. Earlier this year, Sudan, the last male of the subspecies, died of age-related disease (although his sperm has been preserved). His daughter Najin and her daughter, Fatu, live in Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. Najin has leg injuries that prevent her from becoming pregnant, and Fatu has fertility problems that prevent embryos from implanting into the womb.

Extinction of the northern white rhino would seem inevitable. However, a team led by Cesare Galli, a veterinarian and embryologist at Avantea, a biotechnology laboratory in Cremona, Italy, may have given the animal a second chance. Galli and his colleagues have developed a technique to extract eggs from female rhinos and fertilize them to generate viable embryos potentially capable of becoming animals.

Rather than test the procedure — which involves a risky anaesthetic — on Najin and Fatu, the researchers collected eggs from 12 southern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum simum), a closely related subspecies whose numbers stand at around 20,000 across southern Africa.

The researchers injected 17 other eggs with sperm from a southern white rhino, to produce three ‘pure’ southern white rhino blastocysts.

To test the health of the blastocysts, the team generated stem-cell lines from two of the pure embryos. These showed all the signs of healthy embryonic stem cells, suggesting that the embryos from which they were generated would be viable once implanted.

The next step will be to harvest eggs from Najin and Fatu, fertilize them with northern white rhino sperm and implant the resulting embryos in a southern white surrogate — with an ultimate goal of having the first northern white rhino born within three years.

However, the offspring of this effort would lack the genetic diversity to sustain a healthy wild population of northern white rhinos, says Galli. A better, but more challenging, avenue is to use frozen tissue from a wider pool of northern white rhinos to generate stem cells that have the capacity to develop into eggs and sperm (see 'Saving the Northern White Rhino').

I'm glad to see efforts taken to resurrect the northern white rhinoceros in some capacity, although I agree that using stem cells to create more 'pure’ members of the subspecies would be more optimal.

At the very least, if we can't save the northern white rhinoceros, we could create enough hybrids and breed them with southern rhinoceros, giving them more genetic diversity, something that's really vital to any species.

[Dextroden]

Are we going to aggressively guard them so this new species is also not hunted into extinction for their horns?

Also, this is partially a joke, but I feel like it could work. Can we clone the horns, sell them to the Chinese hyper cheap and drive poachers out of a market?

[Independent voter]

Are we going to aggressively guard them so this new species is also not hunted into extinction for their horns?

Also, this is partially a joke, but I feel like it could work. Can we clone the horns, sell them to the Chinese hyper cheap and drive poachers out of a market?

Rhino horns grow back when you cut them off. I guess you have to cut them off the right way, it's like a giant fingernail.

[Techno-Druid]

Are we going to aggressively guard them so this new species is also not hunted into extinction for their horns?

Also, this is partially a joke, but I feel like it could work. Can we clone the horns, sell them to the Chinese hyper cheap and drive poachers out of a market?

There are scientists actually attempting to replicate rhino horns and basically flood the market with it. Remember, rhino horns are just made of keratin, the same material your hair and fingernails are made of.

[RobertoCarlos]

Are we going to aggressively guard them so this new species is also not hunted into extinction for their horns?

Also, this is partially a joke, but I feel like it could work. Can we clone the horns, sell them to the Chinese hyper cheap and drive poachers out of a market?

Getting rid of the demand for the horns is the only way they will be safe. Its not a joke at all.

Human nature shows we cant learn. And people struggling will always seek out options for profit.

[PC2]

We could also preserve its DNA instead of assuming that it's still appropriately adapted to the modern environment.

[Dextroden]

There are scientists actually attempting to replicate rhino horns and basically flood the market with it. Remember, rhino horns are just made of keratin, the same material your hair and fingernails are made of.

I'm aware. That doesn't mean someone won't murder a rhino for it because the buyer thinks it will give him a boner.

[Techno-Druid]

We could also preserve its DNA instead of assuming that it's still appropriately adapted to the modern environment.

Considering the only thing ever stopping it's existence was horn poachers and a lack of serious conservation effort until relatively recently, I would say it's appropriately adapted to its modern environment, just as any species in the Holocene-Anthropocene is.

[ParanoiD84]

Butcher all poachers no fucking mercy they should all die in extreme agony.

[PC2]

Considering the only thing ever stopping it's existence was horn poachers and a lack of serious conservation effort until relatively recently, I would say it's appropriately adapted to its modern environment, just as any species in the Holocene-Anthropocene is.

If any animal in the Holocene is adapted to the Anthropocene then why are we needing to save some of them? That doesn't make sense.

[Techno-Druid]

Thinking about it, there have been discussions by geneticists like George Church on inserting mammoth genes for fur and subcutaneous fat in asian elephants to allow them to survive in more diverse climates.

I wonder if there could potentially be similar efforts with rhinoceroses, especially the extremely threatened Asian species like Javan and Sumatran rhinoceros.

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If any animal in the Holocene is adapted to the Anthropocene then why are we needing to save some of them? That doesn't make sense.

Because we're hunting them to extinction and we are fundamentally different from every other animal species in regards to our ecological impact. We are essentially in 'postzoological' state not too dissimilar in concept to the transhumanist idea of a posthuman existence after Singularity.

[RobertoCarlos]

We could also preserve its DNA instead of assuming that it's still appropriately adapted to the modern environment.

Yeah we need to give them social media accounts as well so they can speak up about being shot and killed by people with high powered rifles and rally the SJW troops on their side. Maybe then they might survive. You are totally right

[NED funded]

The white rhino died so that men in Vietnam could have harder boners.

[RobertoCarlos]

If any animal in the Holocene is adapted to the Anthropocene then why are we needing to save some of them? That doesn't make sense.

because humans over hunt and over populate the planet maybe????

[Logwyn]

Rhino horns grow back when you cut them off. I guess you have to cut them off the right way, it's like a giant fingernail.

Doesn't it take about 3 years to grow back?

[StationaryHawk]

If any animal in the Holocene is adapted to the Anthropocene then why are we needing to save some of them? That doesn't make sense.

I'm not sure what part of them being hunted to extinction by poachers doesn't make sense.

[PC2]

I'm not sure what part of them being hunted to extinction by poachers doesn't make sense.

So they didn't adapt to the Anthropocene. Bringing them back while there is still demand for rhino hunting would be immoral.

[RobertoCarlos]

So they didn't adapt to the Anthropocene. Bringing them back while there is still demand for rhino hunting would be immoral.

We give them twitter accounts, fixed.

[PC2]

We give them twitter accounts, fixed.

Only people can have Twitter account. Rhinos are not people.

[RobertoCarlos]

Only people can have Twitter account. Rhinos are not people.

We assign them a 14 year old girl that can multi task twitter accounts

im sure there will be volunteers