What a “Cool” Rhino Baby

While we don’t provide the daily husbandry and care for the father of Nikki’s calf on Cincinnati Zoo grounds, because he lives at the Bronx Zoo, we do care for his contribution (frozen sperm).  Here is a picture of the Indian rhino sperm bank after one of our CREW team members tops it off with liquid nitrogen.

The “bank” is shorthand for a set of insulated tanks (eg. high quality thermoses).  We top off all the tanks in CREW’s CryoBioBank every Friday to ensure they are maintained at minus 320°F.  While we don’t have male Indian rhinos at the Cincinnati Zoo, we have the genetic potential (sperm) of the most valuable males cryopreseved for use in artificial insemination procedures.  You can imagine just how hard it would be to ship a male Indian rhino around, especially one that lives in another state or another country.