The first Welsh Dragon born in over 500 years has been successfully hatched at Bangor University.
Scientists managed to clone the Welsh Dragon after finding blood within mosquitoes that had been fossilized in amber. They then used the DNA from the dragon blood to complete the cloning process.
Geneticist Dr. Henry Wu explained how the process was achieved, he said: “The mosquito, after having a tasty meal of Welsh Dragon blood, decided to take a siesta on a piece of tree bark.
“Suddenly, sap or resin starts flowing on it, covering it and eventually hardening. The insect with the blood inside gets perfectly preserved when the resin hardens to form amber.
“We then drilled into the amber, into the stomach of the insect, and extracted the blood containing the DNA of the Welsh Dragon. This allowed us to develop the egg which has been incubated for several months and successfully hatched today.
“The work has been top secret up until today, but we are now happy to share this great news with the world.
“The Dragon was born at 00:01hrs this morning, 1st April, as far as we can tell, he appears to be a healthy Welsh Dragon and we‘ve called him Dewi, he is likely to develop his full red colouring on maturity, in about 250 years.”
A spokesperson from the university said they would like to thank Dr John Hammond for his considerable investment in the project.