She plans to use the common wombat as a surrogate mother, to avoid stressing the northern wombat.

ECONOMIST: Endangered species

In the case of the northern wombat, the nucleus could be taken from an easily accessible skin cell, and the egg could be provided by a common wombat.

ECONOMIST: Endangered species

Monique Paris of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, has been working with the common wombat, trying to understand its reproductive cycles as a prelude to tackling the rarer northern hairy-nosed variety, of which only 100 or so survive.

ECONOMIST: Endangered species

There are two other species of wombat, the common (or bare-nosed) wombat, which is not endangered and is found on the southeastern coast of Australia (in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania) and the southern hairy nosed wombat, which is endangered and is found in arid, sandy pockets in the southern part of Australia (in South Australia and Western Australia).

BBC: Protecting a wombat species that is as fast as Usain Bolt