Frozen Semen Works in Rhinoceros Artificial Insemination

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A distaff white rhinoceros has successfully given parturition to a sura after being artificially sow with frosty semen , researchers announced today .

This is the first lively nascence of a rhinoceros resulting from contrived insemination with glacial and thawed seed , adding the rhino to the lean of fewer than 30 animals for which unreal insemination with frozen - thawed seminal fluid has resulted in live offspring , the researchers say .

A white rhino munches grass. African rhino populations have rebounded after nearly going extinct.

The first hot giving birth of an artificially fecundate rhino occurred in 2007 , but that involvedfresh semenfrom a male rhino in the same menagerie .

The new feat involved using semen accumulate from a roughly 36 - yr - erstwhile Southern white rhinoceros ( genus Ceratotherium simum simum ) , freeze down for two to three years and then unfreeze . Two attempts were made to fertilize the egg of a 30 - class - old female rhinoceros with that thawed semen . The 2nd attack resulted in the distaff acquiring significant and giving birth to a goodish calf .

At the fourth dimension of conception , the distaff rhinoceros lived at the Budapest Zoo in Hungary , and the male bestower resided at Colchester Zoo in the United Kingdom .

an illustration of a needle piercing a round cell

The success has implication for conservation of rhinoceroses . While rhino have exist on Earth for more than 50 million year , comprising an raiment of coinage , today only five rhino metal money survive . And nearly all are on the verge of extinction .

Currently , only 3,100 black , 11,700 white , 2,400 Native American , 300 Sumatran and 60 Javan rhinoceros live in the wild , with a global captive population of about 1,200 animals , concord to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park .

Smithsonian officials and others say that developing viable captivepopulations of rhinosis critical to the creature ' natural selection .

A photograph of Mommy, a 100-year-old tortoise at Philadelphia Zoo.

" The use of frozen - thawed come holds great potential as a means to overcome the crisis most confined and wild rhino populations are face in various path , " indite Robert Hermes of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany and his colleagues in an upcoming issue of the journalTheriogenology .

A photograph of three baby western Santa Cruz Galápagos tortoises recently hatched at Philadelphia Zoo.

two adult dire wolves

Spermatozoa, view under a microscope, illustration of the appearance of spermatozoa.

Photo shows an egg hatching out of a �genital pore� in a snail�s neck.

Scientists harvested eggs from the only two living northern white rhinos. Here, Najin recovers after her eggs are collected, while Fatu (Najin’s daughter) undergoes the same procedure in another enclosure.

Mounted rhino heads federal agents say they found in the apartment of an antiques dealer who had pretended to assist in an investigation.

A white rhino mother and calf grazing.

WWF transports black rhinoceroses by helicopter

Sudan, the last male northern white rhino, at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya on June 25, 2015.

Head caretaker Mohammed Doyo feeds Sudan, the last male northern white rhino left on the planet, on June 12, 2015. Sudan lives in a 10-acre enclosure at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, where he is protected from poachers 24 hours a day by armed guards.