A team of scientists at Seoul National University says that in October 2005 it became the first in the world to successfully clone wolves.

The team, led by Lee Byeong-chun and Shin Nam-sik, veterinary professors at the university, said Monday that the two wolves were born on October 18th and October 26th of 2005.

The cloned female wolves are on the Environment Ministry's endangered species list. Only ten wolves of the same breed are known to exist, all living in captivity in a zoo outside Seoul.

Professor Lee said that it's hard to preserve animals on the brink of extinction, even through artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization methods, as their numbers are so small.

The team’s discovery came three months after they announced succeess in cloning three female dogs.