Ask Thomas Hildebrandt why he walks with a limp, and he will tell you with a quick laugh that he had his arm up to his shoulder inside the back end of an elephant when the elephant decided to sit down.
This boyish German scientist is head of reproduction management at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin and the leading world expert in the artificial insemination of giant mammals. He just made headlines by announcing the creation of the first in vitro rhino embryo, and soon he will fly to Kenya for his most challenging job yet. He will either go down in history as the hero who saved the world's rarest large mammal—or as the idiot who accelerated its demise.
