Cow Impregnated With Cells Cloned From Gaur

WASHINGTON — Scientists have impregnated a cow with cells cloned from an endangered animal, the first time such an event has been attempted, the Washington Post reported today.

The scientific journal Cloning will report in its upcoming edition that an Iowa cow is expected to deliver a cloned Asian gaur sometime next month.

The Asian gaur, a humpbacked, cowlike animal native to India and Burma, is the first endangered species to be cloned and the first cloned animal to gestate in the uterus of another species, the newspaper reported.

The Massachusetts scientists who engineered the feat are already planning to clone pandas using preserved cells from animals that died in Washington’s National Zoo in the 1990s, the report said.