Though the Reproductive Biotechnology Centre declined to share its prices, according to reports in the local press, making an exact copy of your prettiest camel could set you back around 200,000 dirhams, or a little over $50,000.

But as far as these competitions are concerned, cloned camels are perfectly legitimate. Owners have been disqualified in the past for using banned tech-niques such as injecting camels with silicone and fillers, and inflating body parts using rubber bands to enhance their appearance. Among the most popular are copies of camel “beauty queens,” with the right combination of drooping lips and long necks.Ĭamel beauty pageants are popular in the Gulf states and prize money runs into the tens of mil-lions of dollars at some events. But the center’s focus is on cloning camels.Įach year, it produces dozens of cloned dromedary camel calves.

Wani and his team research and develop new cloning techniques and maintain cell banks, allowing them to make copies of animals including buffalo and sheep.

Today, Wani is scientific director at the Reproductive Biotechnology Centre, in Dubai, and the practice is so popular that cloning has become his nine-to-five job. When Nisar Ahmad Wani succeeded in carrying out the world’s first camel cloning in 2009, it was hailed as a great achievement.

Cloning wa business