World's Longest Snake Has Virgin Birth

[n2doc]

Virgin birth has been documented in the world's longest snake for the first time, a recent study says.

An 11-year-old reticulated python named Thelma produced six female offspring in June 2012 at the Louisville Zoo in Kentucky, where she lives with another female python, Louise. No male had ever slithered anywhere near the 200-pound (91-kilogram), 20-foot-long (6 meters) mother snake.

New DNA evidence, published in July in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, revealed that Thelma is the sole parent, said Bill McMahan, the zoo's curator of ectotherms, or cold-blooded animals. (Read: "'Virgin Birth' Seen in Wild Snakes, Even When Males Are Available.&quot

"We didn't know what we were seeing. We had attributed it to stored sperm," he said. "I guess sometimes truth is stranger than fiction."

Virgin births have been observed in other reptiles before, including other pythons and snake species, said James Hanken, a professor of herpetology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

more

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141023-virgin-birth-pythons-snakes-animals-science/

[shenmue]

1. But is raising snakes without a father good for snake society?

How will Mama Snake ever get married?

[NV Whino]

2. She looks kind of bored.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Um, wait ... **SIX** virgin births ? All female ?

I'm not sure I wanna see what this leads to.

[ladjf]

4. Thousands of species snakes are viviparous, i.e. live bearers.

Viviparous animals can be impregnated once and bear several batches of offspring. This often happens in home aquariums with guppies, platies , mollies and other viviparous fish. Since I have observed this many times in fish, I would assume that the female snake was impregnated with sperm at some time in the past and that that stored sperm created multiple batches of offspring.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/bio99/bio99857.htm

[FiveGoodMen]

7. Then what about ...

"New DNA evidence, published in July in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, revealed that Thelma is the sole parent"

[ladjf]

8. Well, perhaps that have made a mistake. There might have been a male snake in this female's past.

[FiveGoodMen]

9. Then the baby snake would have DNA other than its mother's.

[ladjf]

10. OK> Explanation #2: Perhaps the mother snake is a rare hermaphrodite specimen

with functional ovaries and testes . She/he may have fertilized their own egg.

[Xipe Totec]

11. You should really know when to fold

[brett_jv]

13. They are professional scientists .... who do this for a living ...

Don't you think that would have been 'possibility #2' (right after the first one you postulated) ... i.e. that they would've already considered it?

What you're talking about would be the kind of mistake a scientist from 1914 MAYBE makes, but most certainly not the kind that one in 2014 makes ... esp. since we now have DNA testing

[NickB79]

17. Then the DNA wouldn't be a match to just the mother

Offspring from a hermaphroditic snake would have mixed DNA just like those born from a mating. In essence, the testes inside the mother would be functioning like the testes of a separate, male snake.

The fact that her DNA matched that of her offpspring shows she is not a hermaphrodite.

[ladjf]

18. Well, here goes the scientific explanation.

Parthenogenesis is a mode of asexual reproduction in which offspring are produced by females without the genetic contribution of a male. This article from Wikipedia will explain it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis_in_reptiles

[PeoViejo]

5. The Messiah has been born

there are six and all female. Hiss..let me tell you a secret.....The Jungle Book has them all.

[phil89]

6. The offspring must be a deity then

Will this spawn a religion?

[Yo_Mama]

12. It's been observed before in multiple species. Never spawned a religion yet.

Komodo dragon:
http://www.livescience.com/9460-female-komodo-dragon-virgin-births.html

Lizards, snakes, even SHARKS:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081010173054.htm

Crayfish!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmorkrebs

As long as the species is icky enough, it's probable that it can reproduce by parthenogenesis. I can't remember a case of a cute-and-cuddly species reproducing this way.

Using the "it's got to be icky" rule, I searched for details on parthenogenetic spiders:
http://www.americanarachnology.org/joa_free/joa_v31_n2/arac-031-02-0274.pdf

On edit:
One suspects that zombies, being very icky, might be capable of reproducing by parthenogenesis, probably after a blood meal.

[Thor_MN]

15. I thought zombies reproduce by biting humans?

They create new zombies by biting people. The aren't looking for brains, just bodies...

[Yo_Mama]

16. I am so old we did not have zombies in my day

So I am not up on the zombie life-cycle. They were not in any of our textbooks or curricula.

I note only that apparently they are reproducing very quickly, and I don't see the American death rate going up in CDC mortality tables. So there must be something we don't know about their reproductive cycle.

?list=PLIB5X6SGnEcQFljpGlQaJtNQj1wjX3L1F

[NickB79]

19. I wish I could find a parthenogenetic chicken

I bet there'd be an insane market for those. Each bird, capable of generating an entire flock by itself.

Since birds are descended from reptiles, maybe, theoretically possible?

The Doomsday Preppers would pay a fortune for a few of those

[Yo_Mama]

20. Chicks are cute and fluffy, so thus no parthenogenesis

On the other hand, if you concentrated on breeding a really, really ugly chicken variety, perhaps?

Go for it, I say!