Only 4 northern white rhinos left on Earth

The rhino, named Nabiré, passed away after suffering from complications due to a ruptured cyst, the Dvur Kralove Zoo noted in a post on Facebook. She was born in the zoo on November 15, 1983. She was plagued with uterine cysts, which prevented her from breeding naturally. But after her death on Monday, her healthy ovary and other tissue samples were removed and taken to a lab in Italy, where it is hoped that they may aid scientists in their studies of northern white rhino reproduction and possibly in vitro fertilization. The goal was to artificially fertilize an egg using sperm from Sudan, or frozen white rhino sperm from a long dead animal.

Nola, a critically endangered 40-year-old female northern white rhino.

“Our condolences go out to the Dvur Kralove Zoo for this particularly hard loss”, said Randy Rieches, curator of mammals for the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. “Her species is on the very brink of extinction”.

PRAGUE (AP) – One of the last five northern white rhinoceros left in the world has died. We are the only ones, perhaps with San Diego Zoo, who have enough of collected biological material to do so. Nola is the only surviving female outside of Africa.

In addition to Nola, an elderly female, the remaining members of the species are a male and two females at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. The 350 square kilometer (90,000 acres) wildlife conservancy is home to the three northern white rhinos, 105 black rhinos, and 23 white rhinos.