Have you ever heard of an animal called the Przewalski’s horse?

It is also called the takhi, Mongolian wild horse or Dzungarian horse. This is a rare and endangered (less in number) wild horse. It is native to the grasslands of central Asian countries, like Mongolia.

Recently, a little baby horse named Kurt was born on 6 August 2020 at the San Diego Zoo Global, US. He is the world’s first-ever successfully cloned Przewalski’s horse. Cloning is the process of creating individuals with identical (same) DNA, either naturally or artificially.

What is even more exciting is that Kurt was created from genetic material that was frozen 40 years ago by the Zoo. So, it means Kurt has genetic material that may no longer exist in his species today.

The last time a Przewalski’s horse was seen in the wild was in 1969. Luckily, some of the horses still remained in zoos. 12 of them were used to increase the population and thanks to that, there are around 2,000 horses today. Some of them have also been introduced back to the wild.

However, this also means that the ones surviving today are all related to the 12 original horses. This can make them more vulnerable to disease or the environment. So, Kurt can help create a more diverse population.

We hope that Kurt grows up to be healthy and strong!

Similar Stories

• Highly endangered ferret cloned from 33-year-old DNA
• Watch a video of baby Kurt: a successfully cloned Przewalski’s horse
• Garlic – China’s first cloned cat

Watch a video

Here is a video of Kurt:

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