A Chinese gene company has successfully cloned a wild arctic wolf for the first time ever;100 days after her birth in a Beijing lab, Sinogene Biotechnology released a video of Maya, the first wild arctic wolf ever to be cloned.
The first-ever cloned wild arctic wolf, Maya, is 100 days old and healthy, according to the Global Times. A wild female polar wolf’s skin sample served as the source of Maya’s donor cells. Its surrogate mother was a beagle, and its oocyte came from a female dog, according to the article.
Over 130 additional embryos were created using enucleated oocytes from a female dog and somatic cells from a wild female arctic wolf to complete the cloning of the arctic wolf. Over 80 embryos were then implanted into the uteri of seven beagles, one of which gave birth to a healthy wolf.
The selection of a dog as the wolf’s surrogate because they have genetic ancestry with ancient wolves and are more likely to be successful in cloning, specialists told the Global Times.
The cloned wolf Maya currently resides in a lab with her surrogate beagle, and later she will be transported to Harbin Polarland in Heilongjiang Province, Northeast China, where she will be on display for the general public, according to the reports.
Cloning technology, in the opinion of specialists, will aid in the production of more rare and endangered animals.