The first successful embryo transfer in a southern white rhino paves way for using technique to save rarer northern cousins

The critically endangered northern white rhino could be saved from the brink of extinction after scientists performed the first successful embryo transfer in white rhinos.

After the last male northern white rhino, Sudan, died in 2018, the disappearance of the species looked imminent. Just two infertile female northern white rhinos – Fatu and Najin – remain, and are under 24-hour armed protection at a conservation reservation in Kenya. But a new scientific advancement means the mother and daughter may not be the last of their kind.

An international team of researchers from BioRescue – a consortium, backed by the German government, which aims to halt extinctions – has performed the first successful embryo transfers in southern white rhinos, paving the way for the technique to be used for their rarer northern counterparts.