--- title: Dolly the Cloned Sheep at 20: How It Actually Happened description: Dolly the cloned sheep was born 20 years ago, on July 5, 1996. Here's how TIME explained the process to readers back then. canonical: https://time.com/4384947/dolly-sheep-cloning-history/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-05T16:00:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T22:53:31.936Z article:section: History og:title: This Is How Dolly the Sheep Was Cloned og:description: Dolly the cloned sheep was born 20 years ago, on July 5, 1996 og:url: https://time.com/4384947/dolly-sheep-cloning-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6a65dd2723221830/698899a80b72e320996e9f67/dolly.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Dolly the Sheep og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Is How Dolly the Sheep Was Cloned twitter:description: Dolly the cloned sheep was born 20 years ago, on July 5, 1996 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6a65dd2723221830/698899a80b72e320996e9f67/dolly.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Is How Dolly the Sheep Was Cloned  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jul 5, 2016 4:00 PM UTC  Dolly the Sheep, the world's first cloned mammal, is shown in this undated photo. Dolly the Sheep, the world's first cloned mammal, is shown in this undated photo.Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jul 5, 2016 4:00 PM UTC When Dolly the sheep was born, 20 years ago this Tuesday, few took note of the remarkable lamb. To know what was special about her, you’d have to look at her DNA: she had been cloned from a cell from an adult sheep by Scottish researchers who had worked on the project for a decade. Dolly wasn’t the first animal to be cloned—research on cloning had been going on since the mid-20th century—but she was the first example of successful cloning of a mammal from an adult cell, rather than a more malleable embryo. Getting there wasn’t easy, nor was it easy for laypeople to understand how the Scottish team succeeded. But, early the year after her birthday, when a headline-grabbing paper in the journal _Nature_ let the world know (and confirmed to insiders) what had happened, TIME published a special report on cloning and took a crack at an explanation. Here’s how the magazine explained the way it worked: --- > “” --- [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) Dolly the sheep was [euthanized](http://time.com/vault/issue/2003-02-24/page/19/) in 2003, after developing lung disease—and raising questions about whether being cloned from a 6-year-old ewe made her age more quickly. (Most sheep live about twice as long as she did.) Meanwhile, the fears about human cloning that were raised by her birthday did not end up panning out, [at least not so far](http://time.com/65610/cloning-cells-from-two-adult-men/), and perhaps for a simple reason: In a TIME poll, only 7% of readers [said](http://time.com/vault/issue/1997-03-10/page/131/) they would be interested in cloning themselves if they had the chance. **_Read the full report, here in the TIME Vault:_** [Will There Ever Be Another You?](http://time.com/vault/issue/1997-03-10/page/1/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4384947/dolly-sheep-cloning-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4384947/dolly-sheep-cloning-history/"},"headline":"This Is How Dolly the Sheep Was Cloned","datePublished":"2016-07-05T16:00:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T22:53:31.936Z","description":"Dolly the sheep was born 20 years ago","url":"https://time.com/4384947/dolly-sheep-cloning-history/","keywords":["Science topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6a65dd2723221830/698899a80b72e320996e9f67/dolly.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6a65dd2723221830/698899a80b72e320996e9f67/dolly.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Dolly the Sheep","caption":"Dolly the Sheep","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4384947/dolly-sheep-cloning-history/","name":"This Is How Dolly the Sheep Was Cloned"}}]}] ```