Monkeys and kittens and horses, oh my! A look at cloned mammals throughout history
Recently cloned monkeys come after a long line of cloned mammals since Dolly the sheep
For the first time, scientists have produced two genetically identical monkeys using the same technique that created Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal.
Long-tailed macaques Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, shown below, follow a long line of cloned mammals including dogs, cats, pigs, camels and horses.
Here's a look at some of the cloned animals that came before them.
Dolly the sheep
The photo below — taken in January 2002 — is of the world's first clone of an adult animal, Dolly the sheep.
Dolly was the first mammal to be cloned in 1996 from an adult somatic cell, using the process of nuclear transfer, the same process used to created the new monkeys.
CC the copy cat
CC, for "CopyCat" or "Carbon Copy", is a brown tabby and white domestic shorthair and said to be the first cloned pet.
CC was born in 2001 and was cloned from the same technique as Dolly, using an adult cell. She gave birth to four kittens, which was the first time a cloned animal gave birth.
Fluorescent puppy
The three-month-old beagle pictured below is one of the "2nd generation Ruppies", offspring of Ruppy. Ruppy (short for Ruby Puppy) and her offspring carry fluorescent genes that glow red under ultraviolet light.
Scientists created the dogs by cloning cells that express a red fluorescent gene produced by sea anemones. Ruppy was the first animal to be cloned using this technique.
Cloning to breed
Pieraz-Cryozootech-Stallion, a cloned foal, from the genes of an endurance champion Pieraz, an Arab stallion.
The foal was born in 2005 and genetic companies say it was the first clone reproduced to breed from a sterile animal. Scientists classified the birth as a breakthrough in terms of preserving the lines of champion race horses by creating clones that can breed.
