First cloned horse

2003/08/07 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Bioteknologia
• Biologia

The mares in the photo are mother and daughter, but also the twin sisters, since the newborn is the clone of the mother. It is the first horse born by cloning and the second equine. The first was born in May, command Idaho Gem. Both achievements have been important because of the difficulty of cloning the equids.

But the Promethean foal is also special for another reason, as it is the first animal that is the clone of its mother. In animals cloned so far, breeding has not been a clone of their mother, but another specimen. The mother has been somehow rented. In this case, the genetic information of the newborn has been extracted from a maternal cell. That is why they are also twin mothers and daughters.

The news was published by the journal Nature.