KUALA LUMPUR, June 8 ― Malaysia’s hope of artificially breeding more Sumatran rhinoceroses have dimmed with the discovery that euthanised Puntung had no egg cells in her ovaries.

Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) director Augustine Tuuga said veterinarians were unable to proceed with plans for in vitro fertilisation as the 25-year-old female rhinoceros that died last week had no eggs in her ovaries, The Star reported today.

"No oocytes (egg cells) were found in the ovarian cortex. It was very unfortunate,” he was quoted saying.

However, the department will be storing Puntung’s tissue samples with several local institutions to preserve her genome for the future.

Puntung was euthanised last Sunday to end her suffering from skin cancer.

She was captured in 2011 and kept at the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary in Tabin Wildlife Reserve, Lahad Datu, with one other female and a male Sumatran rhino.

The sanctuary is managed by the non-governmental organisation Borneo Rhino Alliance contracted by the SWD.

The sanctuary had planned to mate Puntung with another captured male rhino, Tam, in a managed facility, but then found she had cysts in her uterus that made her unable to bear a pregnancy.

However, the sanctuary was reported to be working on in vitro fertilisation to breed more rhinos and to keep the species from becoming extinct altogether.

Malaysia’s Sumatran rhinos no longer exist in the wild. The remainder of the critically endangered species, numbering in the tens, is in neighbouring Indonesia.