Tetra (monkey) facts for kids

Tetra was born on October 12, 1999. She is a rhesus macaque who became famous for being created through a special scientific method called "embryo splitting." This made her the first "cloned" primate (a group that includes monkeys, apes, and humans) to be made using this technique, which is like creating artificial identical twins. A team led by Professor Gerald Schatten at the Oregon National Primate Research Center successfully created her.

Tetra's Unique Creation

Tetra was created using a method called embryo splitting. This process involves carefully dividing the cells of a very early embryo when it has only eight cells. This division creates four smaller, identical two-cell embryos. This technique had been used successfully in animals like cattle before. However, Tetra was the first primate to be cloned this way.

Only two of the four new embryos survived well enough to be placed into surrogate mothers. Tetra was the only one who was born successfully after about 157 days. Her birth was announced on January 13, 2000, when she was four months old. Scientists hoped that creating identical primates like Tetra could help with important advances in human medical research.

The team at the Oregon National Primate Research Center was led by Professor Gerald Schatten. He described the process as "artificial twinning." This method was different from the technique used to create Dolly the sheep. Dolly was made by taking material from an adult animal and putting it into an empty egg cell. Tetra's method was more like how identical twins naturally form.

In the year after Tetra's birth, the same team created another rhesus macaque named Andi. Andi was special because he was the first genetically modified monkey. The egg used to create Andi had been changed to include a gene from a jellyfish. This gene made Andi's cells glow under a special microscope.

See also

• ANDi
• List of individual monkeys
• List of cloned animals