Remember Dolly the Sheep? Her ‘Sister Clones’ Are Living Well

Kevin Sinclair, a developmental biologist at the University of Nottingham in England, has some strange but not-so-unique companions. Sinclair shepherds 13 sheep clones, four of which are related to the famous Dolly!

Sinclair told NPR, “‘Sister clones’ probably best describes them. They actually come from the exact same batch of cells that Dolly came from.” Their names are “Daisy, Debbie, Denise, and Diana.”

Twenty years ago, Dolly became the first successful clone of a mammal. Now, her “sister clones” are nine years old, which is about 70 in “sheep years.” Their high level of health stands as an optimistic contrast to Dolly’s short life of just 6 1/2 years.

Dolly’s death was deemed “bad luck” since she caught a virus, something that didn’t directly correlate with her being a clone, but she did have osteoarthritis at a young age for a sheep. Despite worries about Dolly, Sinclair says, “If I put [her “sister clones”] in with a bunch of other sheep, you would never be able to identify them.”

These cloned sheep will help scientists boost populations of endangered animals in the future and maybe even bring back extinct ones. Daisy, Debbie, Denise, and Diana will continue to live out their lives for another year or so until they are euthanized for research purposes.