SAN DIEGO (Sept. 27, 2022) – Kurt—the world’s first successfully cloned Przewalski’s horse—is thriving at his home at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and learning the language of being a wild horse from Holly, a young female of his own species. Kurt and Holly’s pairing is a step in a long process to bring back lost genetic diversity to this endangered species.

In a study that has unprecedented implications to advance both medicine and biodiversity conservation, researchers have sequenced 131 new placental mammal genomes, bringing the worldwide total to more than 250.

Scientists at San Diego Zoo Global’s Frozen Zoo® have achieved a major milestone in saving wildlife species: This unique collection of genetic material now contains 10,000 individual cell lines from more than 1,100 species and subspecies—some of them critically endangered.