The Memphis Zoo introduced yesterday that it has efficiently produced and hatched reptiles through frozen semen and synthetic insemination. The zoo efficiently produced viable offspring of the endangered Louisiana pine snake (Pituophis ruthveni).
The zoo’s scientists, led by Dr. Steve Reichling, Beth Roberts, Dr. Mark Sandfoss used cryopreserved semen and synthetic insemination and have been profitable in producing three viable hatchlings from seven viable eggs. A complete of 14 eggs from two artificially inseminated feminine pine snakes have been laid, from the sperm of a single male in 2023. The females have been inseminated 4 and 5 occasions over a 14 to 19 day interval.
” Genetic analyses confirmed the donor male was the sire of hatchlings, the researchers wrote of their paper. “That is the primary profitable AI of an endangered snake species and gives a framework for the use and optimization of assisted reproductive applied sciences to be used in conservation breeding packages.” The genetic testing was carried out by Dr. Tonia Schwartz and graduate scholar Alexis Lindsey at Auburn College.
Michael Sealy, USFWS
“The emergence of those 3 hatchlings summed up 5 years of reproductive analysis and 30 years of Memphis Zoo’s use of cutting-edge science and dedication to avoid wasting the Louisiana pinesnake from extinction,” Beth Roberts, senior reproductive scientist at Memphis Zoo mentioned in a press release launched on the zoo’s Fb web page.
“This achievement introduced us one step nearer to routinely integrating assisted reproductive expertise into reptile conservation to protect genetics and save species.”
Louisiana Pine Snake Data
The Louisiana pine snake spends a lot of its life under the forest, underground. It feeds on pocket gophers, that are additionally underground dwellers. They’ll develop to round 5 ft in size and are black, brown and russet in coloration. The Louisiana pine snake is just present in pine forests of Louisiana, in 4 parishes of Louisiana and 5 counties in Texas. In 2018, Pituophis ruthveni was listed as threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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