There are only two of these beautiful beasts left alive – but there is still hope

A white rhinoceros — The white rhinoceros is under threat (Picture: Getty/iStockphoto)

There are only two northern white rhinos left on the planet, but we may have moved a step closer to saving their species.

Thanks to breakthrough fertility treatment, scientists have successfully achieved rhino IVF by transferring a lab-created embryo into a surrogate mother.

The ability to implant fertilised eggs into surrogate rhino mums will be essential if the species is to be saved, because the only two animals left, Najin, 34, and her daughter Fatu, 23, are both infertile.

The last male northern white rhino, Sudan, died in 2018.

However, frozen in liquid nitrogen are 30 northern white rhino embryos, stored in Europe and awaiting their moment for when the technique is perfected. They were created using eggs from Fatu and sperm from two northern white rhinos, collected before they died.

The recent successful IVF procedure was carried out in a closely related subspecies, the southern white rhino.

‘To achieve the first successful embryo transfer in a rhino is a huge step,’ said Dr Susanne Holtze, a scientist at Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) in Germany. The organisation is part of the Biorescue project, an international consortium behind the trial.

The last two northern white rhinos left on Earth — Najin, left, and her daughter Fatu are the last two northern white rhinos left on Earth (Picture: AP)

The southern white rhino surrogate (Picture: BioRescue Project)

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‘I think the situation for the northern white rhino is quite privileged for the embryo transfer because we have a closely related recipient – so their internal map is nearly the same,’ said Professor Thomas Hildebrandt, project head for the Biorescue Consortium.

The surrogate rhino has a health check — Rhino IVF is a complex process, involving a large team of experts (Picture: BioRescue Project)

It took the team 13 attempts to achieve a successful pregnancy, in an international operation combining an egg from a female in a Belgian zoo with sperm from a male rhino living in Australia, implanted into the surrogate in Kenya.

Sadly, despite the successful pregnancy, the trial did not end with a live calf. Tragedy struck when a mudslide hit the rhino’s enclosure, bringing with it a deadly dose of Clostridia bacteria in the soil.