An extinct animal has been resurrected by cloning for the first time—though the clone died minutes after birth.

Findings revealed January 23 in the journal Theriogenology describe the use of frozen skin in 2003 to clone a bucardo, or Pyrenean ibex, a subspecies of Spanish ibex that went extinct in 2000.

Study co-author Jose Folch, of the Center for Agro-Nutrition Research and Technology in Aragon, Spain, said his team plans to try cloning another this ibex this year or next.

"We are not especially disappointed for the death of the cloned newborn," Folch explained in an email, because such deaths in cloning experiments are common.

"We will try to improve the technology in order to increase the efficiency of the cloning process."

But David Wildt,