In a world first, Chinese researchers have successfully cloned macaques using the same technique that yielded the famous clone Dolly the sheep. The milestone, published in Cell on Wednesday, marks the first time that primates have ever been cloned in such a manner.

The years-long effort, led by Chinese Academy of Sciences postdoctoral fellow Zhen Liu, culminated in the recent birth of two female macaques, Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua. The macaques’ names are drawn from the word zhonghua, an adjective for the Chinese people.

The two macaques—eight weeks and six weeks old—are genetically identical, both clones of the same donor culture of fetal monkey cells. The young monkeys are reportedly healthy and currently live in an incubator.

The discovery potentially