A pet-cloning company in China just announced the birth of a female arctic wolf named Maya. She was carried by an unlikely mother—a beagle. The birth of Maya was caught on camera—which shocked people; as the mother was a dog and Maya was a wolf. Three months after the wolf pup was born, the video was put out to the world and went viral.
How was Maya cloned? The scientists used DNA from a fully-grown arctic wolf which was also named Maya. Maya 1 was born in Canada in 2006 and was sent to China in the same year. She died of old age in 2021 according to the Global Times.
Mi Jidong says: “The cloning of Maya was successfully completed "after two years of painstaking efforts," This is also proved to be according to the Global Times.
The researchers from Sinogene created 137 arctic wolf embryos by combining skin cells from the first Maya with the egg cells from dogs. Luckily, dogs and wolves are so closely related that this process was easier than cloning any other animals.
Maya will eventually be released into the Harbin Polarland park to be with the other Arctic wolves. The keepers of the park say that the adult wolves will have to get used to her—and vice versa. The Sinogene scientists say that another cloned wolf pup—which is male was due to be born on Thursday, September 22. Although, news has not been reported yet.
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