This small horse has a big purpose. See the adorable cloned foal frolic in his paddock
This little horse doesn’t have a name yet, but he already has a big life purpose — to help revive his endangered species.
He’s just the second Przewalski’s horse researchers have ever successfully cloned, and his “arrival will help return genetic diversity to the endangered P-horse population,” the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance said in an April 19 post on Twitter.
He was cloned from the DNA of a Przewalski’s horse stallion that was cryopreserved more than 40 years ago at the alliance’s Biodiversity Bank’s frozen zoo, the organization said in a news release. He was born Feb. 17 to a surrogate mare at ViaGen Pets & Equine’s cloning facility in Texas.
He’ll soon join his genetic twin, named Kurt, at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, the release said. Kurt was the first successfully cloned Przewalski’s horse and made the same move from the Texas facility to the zoo in March 2021.
“This is a big deal for conservation,” said Revive & Restore co-founder and executive director Ryan Phelan. The nonprofit partnered with ViaGen Pets & Equine and the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance on the cloning.
The successful cloning suggests the process is “a viable strategy to revive lost genetic diversity in endangered species,” Phelan said.
Having two soon–to–be stallions of a “genetically valuable line” means researchers have twice the chance of reviving that lost genetic diversity, Revive & Restore’s lead scientist Ben Novak said in the release. The plan is for Kurt and the new foal to eventually become breeding stallions when they’re fully grown at 3 or 4 years old.
Novak previously met Kurt and hopes to meet the new foal as well, CBS8 reported.
“I met Kurt myself. Putting my hand on him, all of that cool science is there in my head buzzing, but it kind of melts away just for the experience that this isn’t just a neat science experiment,” he told the station. “This is something meaningful, to feel him breathe, to watch him run.”
Przewalski’s horses at one point went extinct in the wild and have survived almost entirely in zoos for the last 40 years, the release said. Nearly all of them came from only 12 Przewalski’s horses born in native habitats.
They’re the “last truly wild horse”, and have never been tamed to ride, according to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute. They were once thought to be the ancestors of domestic horses, but they’re “actually distant cousins.”
The horses once lived “throughout Europe and Asia,” the institute said. But “competition with man and livestock, as well as changes in the environment, led to the horse moving east to Asia, and eventually becoming extinct in the wild.” Now, they’re only found in “reintroduction sites in Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan.”
Like domestic horses, Przewalski’s social structures are important, and San Diego Zoo Safari Park wildlife care experts will make sure Kurt and the new foal get the “unique behavioral language they will need to interact and thrive among the larger herd of Przewalski’s horses at the Safari Park.”
This story was originally published April 20, 2023 at 7:09 PM with the headline "This small horse has a big purpose. See the adorable cloned foal frolic in his paddock."
