Snakes without fathers: one of the unusual baby boas
Posted on 11/03/2010 12:26:15 PM PDT by SubGeniusX
A female boa constrictor snake has given birth to two litters of extraordinary offspring.
Evidence suggests the mother snake has had multiple virgin births, producing 22 baby snakes that have no father.
More than that, the genetic make-up of the baby snakes is unlike any previously recorded among vertebrates, the group which includes almost all animals with a backbone.
Details are published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
Virgin births do occur among animals.
Many invertebrates, such as insects, can produce offspring asexually, without ever having mated. They usually do this by cloning themselves, producing genetically identical offspring.
But among vertebrate animals, it remains a novelty, having been documented among less than 0.1% of vertebrate species.
In 2006, scientists discovered that two komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensis), the world's largest lizard species, had produced eggs that developed without being fertilised by sperm - a process called parthenogenesis.
Then in 2007, other scientists found that captive female hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna tiburo) could also reproduce without having sex.
But vertebrates generally reproduce sexually.
Not including genetic material from the father - essentially having just a single biological parent - reduces genetic diversity and makes it more difficult for organisms to adapt to, for example, changed environmental conditions or the emergence of a new disease.
Novel beginnings
Now, a team of scientists and snake experts based in the US has identified the first case of a boa snake having a virgin birth.
"Although parthenogenesis has been documented in a few snake species, our findings are truly novel for a number of reasons," says Dr Warren Booth...
"The female [boa] has had not one virgin birth, but actually two...
"All offspring are female. The offspring share only half the mother's genetic make-up," he told the BBC.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
V.
The funny part (for me) is that they do “mate” each other, they are lezzie lizards and will only stimulate a pregnancy after getting frisky with a sister lizard.
Snakes without fathers: one of the unusual baby boas
I expect the militant feminists to be all over this research like white on rice!
“evolutionarily a set back; but rather successful for all that.”
LOL the Law of higgedly piggedly strikes again!
It’s Satan
That proves the old saying that *if you don’t have what you need, make do with what you got...*. Seems those snakes got lucky.
Scientists are shocked to find out that God is able to out smart them once again.
I followed along right up to this point and then went to read the entire article. Where did the other half of the offspring's DNA come from? The article goes into some good detail. Do female vertebrates carry around a store of extra RNA strands from birth? It will be interesting to see if these "new" snakes can breed or are a sort of genetic dead end.
Unfortunately, they don't look anything like my favorite reptile:
JPB, I LOVE your homepage - hillarious! I don’t get the moose bit, but the rest of the stuff is AWESOME!
The mother passed on half of her DNA -but doubled. The offspring have two identical copies of each gene. The mother has, for each gene, one copy from her mom and one copy from her dad. The offspring have either two copies of a grandma snake gene, or two copies of a grandpa snake gene.
"Dr. Ian Malcolm: No, I'm simply saying that life, uh... finds a way. "
Diana > Anna
Ah, boots.
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