Dolly, the first cloned sheep
Dolly was born 05 July 1996, to three different mothers. Her genetic mother provided the DNA, a second ewe provided the egg into which the DNA was injected, and a third carried the resulting cloned embryo to term, and gave birth to Dolly. Like many other cloned animals, Dolly
seemed to be born with a number of physical problems: she suffered from
arthritis and seemed to have aged prematurely. Although sheep can reach the age
of eleven or twelve, Dolly was put down in February 2003 after
developing a serious lung infection. Dolly was only six and a half calendar years old at the
time of her death, but it has
been suggested that Dolly’s "developmental age" at death was in fact
twelve, including the age of the six-year-old ewe from which her DNA was taken.
All text material © 2004 by Steven M. Carr