A disgraced stem cell scientist unveiled eight cloned coyotes today in a project sponsored by a South Korean provincial government.
Hwang Woo-Suk delivered the clones to a wild animal shelter in Pyeongtaek, 35 miles south of Seoul, in a ceremony chaired by Gyeonggi province governor Kim Moon-Soo.
Hwang was a national hero until some of his research into creating human stem cells from a cloned embryo was found to be faked.
Mirror images: Five of the eight coyotes cloned by South Korean stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk take a breather at an wildlife centre in Pyeongtaek
Controversial: The animals were created by planting the nucleus from a coyote cell into that of a dog
But his work in creating Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog, in 2005 has been verified by experts and authorities.
Under a joint project with the province to clone wild animals, Hwang took cells from the skin of a coyote, according to a statement.
He transplanted their nuclei into a dog's eggs from which the canine nucleus had been removed and the first clone was born on June 17 at the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation.
In a message on Twitter, the governor praised Hwang for what he called the world's first use of such a technique.
'The cloning of an African wild dog is under way, and we will attempt to clone a mammoth in the future,' Kim said.
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