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All the United Kingdom Scotland Edinburgh Remains of Dolly the Sheep
AO Edited

Remains of Dolly the Sheep

The taxidermy remains of the first mammal ever cloned from an adult cell are on display in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh, Scotland

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Dolly at the National Museum of Scotland.   M J Richardson/CC BY-SA 2.0
Dolly at the National Museum of Scotland.   Mike Pennington/CC BY-SA 2.0
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Side angle of Dolly the Sheep   honeytea / Atlas Obscura User
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Dolly as observed from upper floor.   loremipsum / Atlas Obscura User
Dolly’s remains.   Geni/CC BY-SA 4.0
Dolly the Sheep.   laurenreid / Atlas Obscura User
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About

Though Dolly the Sheep looks like any of the other woolly creatures that fill the Scottish countryside, she’s actually an extra special specimen. She was the first cloned mammal ever to be created from an adult cell.

The sheep was a scientific marvel. Her successful arrival into the world brought her international fame within the scientific community. Before Dolly, the idea of cloning an adult mammal was pure science fiction.

Dolly was created from the mammary gland of a sheep. It’s how she got her name. The animal was named after country singer Dolly Parton who, as one of the men responsible for creating the sheep said, has her own famously impressive pair of mammary glands.

Dolly was born on July 5th, 1996 at the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute. Despite the fact that her life began in a test tube and she technically had three moms (one sheep provided the egg, another the DNA, and another carried her embryo), she lived a fairly normal life. She was even allowed to breed, and birthed six lambs of her own. Sadly, she died in 2003 after developing tumors in her lungs.

You can pay your respects to the famous sheep by popping into the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh to view her stuffed remains. She is fairly easily to spot in her rotating plexiglass cubicle, located in the Science and Technology Gallery. Dolly is just one of the many things to see and experience at the museum.

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Sheep Science Museums Animals Taxidermy Science Fiction

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Dolly is on display in the science and technology galleries.

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laurenreid

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nooker21, edmundmurray, SEANETTA, pnash69...

  • nooker21
  • edmundmurray
  • SEANETTA
  • pnash69
  • disgruntledninja
  • billharvey
  • Kerry Wolfe
  • Collector of Experiences
  • rbenn250
  • honeytea
  • loremipsum
  • Helen Rose
  • jyackabonis

Published

October 12, 2017

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  • http://dolly.roslin.ed.ac.uk/facts/the-life-of-dolly/index.html
Remains of Dolly the Sheep
27-28 Chambers St
Chambers St
Edinburgh, Scotland, EH1
United Kingdom
55.947502, -3.189809
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