CREMONA, Italy (AP) — An Italian assisted-breeding company says it has fertilized eggs removed from the last two female northern white rhinos with sperm from the now-dead last male, but it will be about 10 days before it's known whether the eggs have become embryos.

Cesare Galli, a founder of Avantea and an expert in animal cloning, said, "We expect some of them will develop into an embryo."

Avantea said that only seven of 10 eggs extracted last week from the females in Kenya could be used in the fertilization attempts Sunday using frozen sperm that had been taken from the male, which died in March 2018.

Wildlife experts and veterinarians are hoping that the species can reproduce via a surrogate mother rhino.