SCBI scientists have been studying IVF and embryo transfer in cheetahs for 15 years. They have been observed nursing, and the first day birth weights for the male was 480 grams and the female 350 grams. The cubs were born later that evening at 9:50 p.m. Veterinarians and keepers at Columbus Zoo noticed Izzy began showing signs that she was in labor Wednesday, Feb. Izzy was monitored closely during her pregnancy and received regular ultrasounds and radiographs. Cheetah pregnancies typically last between 90 and 96 days. In December 2019, about a month after the procedure, veterinarians at the Columbus Zoo detected two fetuses on an ultrasound. ![]() “The additional knowledge we gained throughout this process will serve as an important resource in the future, and we are proud to work with our zoological colleagues on perfecting innovative methods that ultimately can have a direct impact on protecting rare species like cheetahs.” “The success of this groundbreaking procedure would not have been possible without the incredible dedication, collaboration, and scientific expertise of the teams at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Fossil Rim Wildlife Center and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium,” said Tom Stalf, President/CEO of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Izzy, the surrogate, is less genetically valuable and is not currently recommended to breed, but she was hand-raised as a cub and very comfortable with keepers, which made her a good candidate as a surrogate cheetah mom. Her valuable genes were at risk of never being passed on. Kibibi had never given birth to a cub and is genetically valuable, but she is unlikely to ever reproduce on her own. It was only the third time scientists had ever attempted the procedure. The fertilized embryos were then transferred to Izzy’s oviduct Nov. 19, 2019, and performed in vitro fertilization, fertilizing them in a laboratory with the sperm collected in Texas earlier that year. They then harvested eggs from Kibibi at the Columbus Zoo Nov. IVF embryo transfer will help scientists and zoos build the most robust and genetically healthy insurance population of cheetahs in human care possible, and potentially could even help the genetics of wild cheetahs.įor the embryo-transfer procedure, scientists collected semen from a male cheetah living at Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Texas in February 2019 and froze it. However, techniques scientists use to boost genetic diversity and health in other endangered and vulnerable species have not had much success in cheetahs. Cheetahs naturally have low genetic diversity due to a near extinction at the end of the last ice age. 19 to 3-year-old mom Izzy, though the cubs’ biological mom is 6 1/2-year-old, Kibibi. Scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) and the Columbus Zoo have successfully transferred cheetah embryos produced by in vitro fertilization (IVF) to a surrogate cheetah mom for the first time.
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