Snakelike robot may help save white rhinos from extinction

Scientists have created a flexible, snakelike robot that can perform artificial insemination and embryo transfer on rhis, an vance that may potentially rescue rrn white rhis from brink of extinction.

Deces of poaching and habitat loss have led to dramatic decline of rrn white rhi -- with just two rrn white rhis remaining in world, both of whom are female.

Hope for ir survival w rests on ability to develop invative methods for repopulating species, according to researchers from  University of California San Diego and San Diego Zoo Global in US.

device is a long, thin cater that can be steered through a rhi's cervix to deliver a specimen to uterus, said Michael Yip, a professor at UC San Diego.

Navigating a female rhi's reproductive anatomy is incredibly complicated.

" rhi cervix is very large and tortuous," said Barbara Durrant, from San Diego Zoo Global.

It has a series of twists and turns like switchbacks on a steep mountain ro. This goes on for eight to 12 inches. d to that a fairly long vagina plus uterine body leing up to uterine horn, and that totals up to 27 inches worth of rhi anatomy to get through before depositing semen or an embryo.

To make ir way through this labyrinth, team currently uses a stainless steel cater, five millimeters in diameter, with a 45-degree bend at end.

y have to guide this through rhi's cervix by hand.

"It's difficult and requires a bit of manipulation to negotiate and twist this through gently, so it doesn't dam cervical tissue," Durrant said.

This technique has worked so far for doing artificial insemination. It's typically performed when a female rhi's estrogen levels are high, which causes her cervical tissue to soften and open.

However, it gets even trickier when researchers have to do an embryo transfer. This procedure is usually done later in rhi's cycle when her progesterone levels are high. That causes her cervix to stiffen and close.

"So, we can't use anything that's rigid," Durrant said.

Researchers used flexible robotic caters -- two to three-millimeter-diameter robots, measuring a couple metres in length, that can be shaped and maeuvred through complex s deep in body with high precision.

However, since neir of remaining rrn white rhi females are able to carry a pregnancy, Durrant's team will use robotic cater on a related subspecies, sourn white rhi.

plan is to first create rrn white rhi eggs and sperm using stem cells from previously collected frozen cell lines, n fertilise m to generate rrn white rhi embryos.

Researchers would n use robot to implant resulting embryos in surrogates.

" ultimate goal is to produce a self-sustaining herd of rrn white rhis, first in captivity and n back into wild," Durrant said.