Facing Extinction: The Northern White Rhinoceros’ Conservation Hopes Threatened by Resurrected Ancient Bacteria

The northern white rhinoceros on the verge of extinction

To save species in critical danger of extinctions, several actions are implemented, in particular captive reproduction programs. Now it sometimes happens that the only living individuals of a species are not able to generate offspring. This is, for example, the case of white northern rhinos.

Being obviously unable to reproduce, researchers Biothecuea German organization coordinated by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz – Izw) and which aims to save critical mammals of extinction, such as the white northern rhino, have produced a fertilization for the first time in vitro (IVF).

A bacteria resurfaces at the worst of the moments

To do this, Jan Stejskal, coordinator of the biotic project, and his team used frozen samples, and introduced them into a white southern rhino, a species also in danger but which contains several thousand individuals in South Africa in particular. But this promising initiative and filled with hope could not succeed after Curra, the surrogate mother, died less than an hour after falling ill.

The researchers discovered with surprise, when examining his carcasses, the presence of an old bacteria called Clostridia. The latter releases an extremely powerful toxin capable of killing a rhinoceros in just 60 minutes, according to Iflscience.

But how did this bacterium resurface? According to experts, the latter, who can live up to 500 years, was released from the upper layer of Kenyan soil, after very heavy rains caused by a climate phenomenon known as the name of El Niño. The latter causes surface water warming of the central equatorial ocean is, and notably disrupts rain diets in certain regions of the world.

The first IVF still worked

The death of this rhinoceros led the research team on site to immediately vaccinate the other individuals of white rhinos in the south, in order to stem this bacteria. But while everything seemed lost, a fetus of white male white rhinoceros, 66 days, was discovered during the car -bearing mother.

“I do not want to give the impression that it was beneficial, but as we were able to have the embryo and take a sample of fabric, we were able to take it in a laboratory in Europe and observe the DNA of the fetus”said Jan Stejskal.

The Biorescue team works in collaboration with that of the Colossal Foundation, for “Develop a technology that will explore the historical genetics of the populations of white rhinos in the North in order to understand what the population looked like before its disappearance of 99 %”, explains Matt James, animal manager of Colossal. Hope is therefore in order to save the white rhinos in the north of a future extinction, whose history has inspired the new National Geographic film entitled The Last Rhinos: A New Hope.

Source: Iflscience