An infertile pig has given birth to a litter of "healthy" piglets following microsurgery performed by a robot.
The sow, called Rosa, underwent the operation by a robotic ‘surgeon’ in south-western Russia earlier this year.
Two months later, she was reportedly introduced to a male pig called Boris and quickly became pregnant .
And now, she has given birth to six piglets at the ‘Krasnaya Gorka’ (Red Hill) farm in the country’s Penza Oblast region.
Some claim the birth ‘raises new hopes’ for women struggling to conceive.
Professor Gennady Boriaev, of Penza State Agrarian University, said all the piglets were healthy and two "looked like Dad – spotty, like Dalmatians".
Both the babies and their mum are said to be doing well.
The operation, assisted by Dmitry Pushkar, head urologist at the Russian Ministry of Health, was performed in March.
And farm managers are said to be already planning Rosa’s next pregnancy.
They hope she will deliver more piglets in February or March next year.
After this, medical experts may draw a conclusion on the ‘success’ of the experiment. Doctors claim that if it does prove successful, it could lead to the same surgery being carried out on human patients.
The main reason they decided to operate on a pig was reportedly because of the similarity between the animal’s organs and those of humans.
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A robot was used to carry out the operation because it was capable of making much smaller incisions, speeding up the recovery period.
Taking to the Internet, one person remarked: "Oh wow, this is very impressive."
Further details surrounding the operation and what exact work the robot performed on Rosa remain unclear.
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