Animal "sperm bank" is expected to revive rare animals.

The establishment of animal "sperm bank" in Beijing Zoo is expected to revive rare animals.

The Beijing Zoo has set up a sperm bank for dead animals. In the future, whenever rare animals die, veterinarians will immediately notify the "sperm bank" to collect sperm. At present, the sperm bank has preserved the sperm of many species, such as giant panda, golden monkey, zebra, white crane, black-necked crane and so on. A tiger was so old when it died that the staff had to give up sperm extraction.

A reporter from the Beijing Morning Post learned from the "Beijing Zoo Science and Technology Conference" that the Beijing key Laboratory of captive Wildlife Technology was established at the Beijing Zoo in 2014. It mainly studies the welfare, nutrition, ecology, reproduction and disease prevention and control of rare wild animals in captivity. This year, the laboratory has set up a sperm bank of rare wild animals, which contains more than 10 liquid nitrogen tanks. According to the staff, once the wild animal dies, the veterinarian will immediately notify the laboratory to extract the essence and store it in liquid nitrogen as a future seed bank.

It is reported that the "sperm bank" of the animal kingdom is also known as the "frozen zoo", that is to say, after many years, many endangered animals in the world will become extinct. When the seeds in the "frozen zoo" are thawed and artificially inseminated, they can bring the endangered animals back to life and continue the species. The researchers also said that the wild population resources of rare wild animals will become less and less, genetic diversity will be lost, and there are abundant genetic resources in sperm, and frozen sperm can increase the genetic diversity of species in the future.

At present, the Beijing Zoo has used frozen semen to artificially inseminate giant pandas. After natural breeding, giant pandas will also undergo artificial insemination immediately to ensure their successful pregnancy. Panda cubs need to be tested for paternity after birth to determine who is the biological father. But the staff explained that the frozen sperm come from live giant pandas and have not been artificially inseminated with dead animal semen. "but we will recover a batch of sperm over time to test its motility and freezing techniques." It is reported that as the sperm bank has just been established, it is in the exploratory stage, and the animal mortality rate in the zoo is not high, so it is not possible to be picky. Basically, a dead animal will retain its sperm. Recently, a tiger died, but he was too old and the sperm had lost its vitality, so he gave up storing semen. (reporter Cui Hong)