A Jurassic Park-style plan to bring back an effectively extinct species took a step towards being realised after scientists successfully harvested eggs from world's last two northern white rhino.

Northern white rhino was thought to be doomed forever when Sudan, the planet's last male, died at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya in March 2018.

He was survived only by Najin, 30 and her daughter Fatu, who live under 18 live under 24 hour armed guard in the same conservancy, but are both unable to become pregnant.

But now an international consortium of scientists is using frozen sperm from four deceased males and eggs harvested from the two females to raise the species from the dead.

"We succeeded in getting 10 eggs, which is fantastic. They arrived in Italy on Friday morning and will be matured before being applied to sperm to create embryos," said Steven Seet a spokesman for the IZW and partner in the project.

Because neither Najin nor Fatu are healthy enough to carry a pregnancy to term, the plan is to implant the embryos in the wombs of southern white rhinos, a closely related subspecies still found in large numbers in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana.