China’s first “copy cat” is ready to make its debut: A Beijing-based company reportedly created the nation’s first cloned kitten and it is an adorable fur baby.
Huang Yu, the kitten’s owner, contacted Sinogene, a commercial pet-cloning company that has previously cloned 40 dogs, after his feline, Garlic, died after urinary tract infection complications earlier this year, Fox News reported. Heartbroken over the loss of Garlic, Huang hoped that Sinogene could create a clone of his cat that he loved so much.
“In my heart, Garlic is irreplaceable,” Huang told The New York Times. “Garlic didn’t leave anything for future generations, so I could only choose to clone.”
The cloned kitty, which is also named Garlic, was born on July 21, AFP noted. It was created from skin cells collected from the original cat, which was unearthed by Huang before the cloning process. Sinogene then retrieved DNA samples from the deceased cat and placed them inside feline eggs. The process resulted in 40 cloned embryos that were placed in surrogate cats, and only one of the pregnancies made it to full term, according to Chen Benchi, who leads Sinogene’s experiments team.
Garlic the kitten is an exact copy of Garlic the beloved cat who died – his owner paid for him to be cloned 🐱🐱 pic.twitter.com/2ff03DQHOK
— BBC World Service (@bbcworldservice) September 6, 2019
Huang had to shell out $35,000 for the cloning process and even though the “similarity between the two cats is more than 90 percent,” he was still slightly disappointed over some differences, including the new kitty lacking a patch of black fur on its face.
“If I tell you I wasn’t disappointed, then I would be lying to you,” Huang explained to The New York Times. “But I’m also willing to accept that there are certain situations in which there are limitations to the technology.”
Mi Jidong, Sinogene’s CEO, told AFP that even though pet cloning may be expensive, not all of his clients earn a lot of money and are looking to fill a void in their lives after losing their pets.
“In fact, a large proportion of customers are young people who have only graduated in the last few years,” he said. “Whatever the origin of pets, owners will see them as part of the family. Pet cloning meets the emotional needs of young generations.”
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