For the first time, American scientists have cloned an endangered species by using the eggs and the womb of another animal - a cow. According to the ‘Washington Post Sunday’, an Asian Gaur – a humpbacked, ox-like animal native to India and Burma - was cloned from a single skin cell taken from a dead Gaur. Scientists fused the cell to a cow's egg, whose own genes had been removed, then transferred it to the womb of another cow, named Bessie. Bessie's Gaur, named Noah, is due to be born next month, researchers report in a landmark scientific paper in the latest issue of the journal ‘Cloning’, to be released this week. “It is the first endangered species ever to be cloned, and the first cloned animal to gestate in the womb of another species,” ‘The Post’ said. Noah's fetal heartbeat heralds the beginning of a new era of wildlife conservation in which endangered and even recently extinct animals may make dramatic comebacks through cloning techniques. Already, the Massachusetts scientists who created Noah are laying plans to clone endangered giant pandas, including perhaps the Washington National Zoo's Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, who died in 1992 and 1999 and whose cells sit frozen in liquid Nitrogen in Frederick. Later this year, they intend to clone a species of Spanish mountain goat that was listed as endangered until nine months ago, when the last known individual died. Bureau Report