Scientists have created 49 clones of Millie the Chihuahua to understand why she is so short

Chihuahua named Miracle Milly became famous several years ago as the smallest puppy in the world, and in 2013 she was recognized as the smallest dog in the world.

At 2 years old, baby Millie weighed only 400 grams, which is not enough even for a Chihuahua, and her height at the withers did not even reach 10 cm.

As a puppy, Millie easily fit on the screen of an average phone or in a teacup.

Now, at six years old, Millie weighs 800 grams, but her height at the withers has not changed.

The phenomenal success of Millie, who now has more than 300 fans on social networks, and which veterinarians at first even considered unviable, prompted scientists to understand the reason for her small stature. For this purpose, the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation laboratory in Seoul decided to create clones of Milli, after which 2017 puppies were born in August 49.

The Sooam Biotech Research Foundation laboratory specializes in cloning pets. Individuals for $75,600 will have their dog or cat cloned here and can clone even a dead pet by taking samples from dead cells.

According to director David Kim, a team of four world-renowned scientists will soon begin to directly investigate why Millie is so small in stature in the absence of dangerous pathologies.

Now, when the puppies are almost a year old, you can see that they all look like Millie like two peas in a pod. Of the 12 puppies, 49 now live with the Florida-based (previously based in Puerto Rico) Semler family, Millie’s owners, who are Chihuahua breeders. The puppies were named Molly, Mally, Melly, Mully, Mum, Mila, Mary, Mimi, Moni, Mini, Mela and Mulan. Vanessa Semler personally pipet-fed the little puppies when they were handed over to her almost immediately after birth. The process of cloning Milly was not much different from cloning the famous sheep Dolly. To do this, scientists removed the nuclei from Millie’s cells, which contain her genetic information, and then transplanted them into donor eggs. When development began in the eggs, the embryos were placed in the uterus of surrogate mothers, who safely carried and gave birth to puppies.

According to Vanessa, the puppies are very similar to Millie, but some of them are somehow a little taller than her. Initially, scientists wanted to create only 10 clones, but then they decided to make more in case some of the embryos did not take root.

Millie herself is still resting on the laurels of her popularity. She is often invited to entertaining TV shows around the world. Millie eats a gourmet diet of fresh salmon and chicken and eats nothing else.

According to Vanessa Semler, Millie is like their own child for them, they adore this dog and consider her very smart, although a little spoiled.

Millie really can rightfully be called Wonderful. Despite her small stature, she has no health problems and will probably live without problems for many more years, enjoying fame and popularity.

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