"It's quite rare to have so many calves cloned at the same time," said Chen Dayuan, a research fellow with the Institute of Zoology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Chen acts as chief scientist of the cloning program.

　　The nine calves were born between January 18 and February 4. One died of body defects and another of acute pneumonia. All the animals were cloned with independent efforts of Chinese scientists.

　　The key program is funded by China's National Natural Science Foundation and is undertaken jointly by the Institute of Zoology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shandong Zhongda Animal Embryo Engineering Center.