Maya (

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...

: ) is a cloned female

arctic wolf The Arctic wolf (''Canis lupus arctos''), also known as the white wolf or polar wolf, is a subspecies of grey wolf There are 38 subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' listed in the taxonomic authority '' Mammal Species of the World'' (2005, 3rd e ...

that was born from a

beagle The beagle is a Dog breed, breed of small scent hound, similar in appearance to the much larger foxhound. The beagle was developed primarily for Tracking (hunting), hunting hare, known as beagling. Possessing a great sense of smell and sup ...

surrogate mother Surrogacy is an arrangement, often supported by a legal agreement, whereby a woman agrees to delivery/labour for another person or people, who will become the child's parent(s) after birth. People may seek a surrogacy arrangement when pregnan ...

in China. She was born on June 10, 2022, and news of her birth was revealed to the public on September 19 of the same year at Harbin Polarland, in China's

Heilongjiang Heilongjiang () formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is the northernmost and easternmost province ...

Province, by the biotechnology company Sinogene.

Genesis and birth

Maya was cloned in a Beijing lab using skin cells from a 16-year-old female donor arctic wolf, also named Maya, that was living in Harbin Polarland, an arctic theme-park in China. A skin cell from the donor wolf was inserted into the enucleated

egg cell The egg cell, or ovum (plural ova), is the female reproductive cell, or gamete, in most anisogamous organisms (organisms that reproduce sexually with a larger, female gamete and a smaller, male one). The term is used when the female gamete is ...

of a female beagle, whereby the

somatic Somatic may refer to: * Somatic (biology), referring to the cells of the body in contrast to the germ line cells ** Somatic cell, a non-gametic cell in a multicellular organism * Somatic nervous system, the portion of the vertebrate nervous syst ...

nucleus from the skin cell and the recipient oocyte were reconstituted into a new

embryo An embryo is an initial stage of development of a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male sperm ...

. This method was performed in order to construct 137 new embryos. Scientists then inserted 85 of the embryos into seven different beagle surrogate mothers. The experiments resulted in failed births six out of seven times, with Maya being the only wolf born successfully. Although she was born on 10 June 2022, researchers decided to wait 100 days before unveiling her to the public due to the high likelihood that she would die young. Researchers said that it would be impossible to release her into the wild due to her lack of socialization with other wolves for the beginning of her life. She was then moved to Harbin Polarland where she now lives with her beagle surrogate mother.

Implications for conservation

Although arctic wolves are not under threat, the researchers behind Maya hope that the genetic technology used can potentially help other species under threat as the world heads into an extinction crisis. Sinogene, the company behind Maya, said that it will be working with the Beijing Wildlife Park to research more applications for the cloning of rare and endangered animals in China.

References

{{reflist Cloned animals 2022 animal births 2022 in China Individual animals in China Individual wolves

Genesis and birth

Implications for conservation

See also

References