Cloned Food: Animal Cloning

The ability to clone animals is both a recent and generally unexpected development. Animals, obviously, do not lend themselves to easy duplication. Animal reproduction is almost always a sexual process requiring two sets of genes. (Very occasionally, in conditions of extreme stress, some species of animals spontaneously reproduce themselves in a process known as parthenogenesis. Parthenogenesis does not occur in mammals.) Since a combination of genetic material is generally required for animal reproduction, an animal can replicate some of its traits in its offspring—but it cannot copy itself. And unlike with many vines and flowering plants, a beak, hoof, or tenderloin cannot simply be lopped off a prized animal and then left, with a bit of water, to regrow the missing parts.