Tissue samples taken at the post-mortem of a 40-year old, Southern white rhino named Clara, could help protect her own species from extinction.
During the procedure, performed by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) at Whipsnade Zoo in the UK, a skin sample from Clara鈥檚 ear was extracted to be cryopreserved by Nature鈥檚 SAFE, a specialist facility storing cells from some of the world鈥檚 most endangered animals.
Other samples are being sent to Wellcome Sanger for projects looking into the genetics of aging. And at the University of Oxford鈥檚 The Rhino Fertility Project, eggs extracted from her ovary could, one day, help produce white rhino embryos. “The samples that we’ve collected today will go on to influence how we look after this species, how we conserve this incredible species in the wild”, says Dr Simon Spiro, wildlife veterinary pathologist at ZSL. It will “contribute to a huge amount of scientific research and data”, he adds.