Posted on 05/26/2019 12:40:45 PM PDT by EdnaMode
Staffers at the New England Aquarium last winter were setting up for an after-hours event near the Amazon rain forest exhibit when they made an unexpected discovery.
Anna the anaconda — 30 pounds, 8 years old and 10 feet long — had given birth to a litter of baby snakes.
Aquarium staff notified the resident biologist, who scrambled into the tank and found three live babies and about a dozen stillborn.
On its face, anaconda birth isn’t unusual. Anaconda have no trouble reproducing in aquarium settings, and the snakes living in this Amazon exhibit were no exception. If left to freely breed, green anaconda like Anna can have dozens of babies at a time, which is precisely why staffers at this Boston aquarium had taken great care to keep male and female snakes in separate tanks.
By design, Anna’s roommates were all female. She had no contact with males.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
All I know is if it’s the Wa Post, they’re trying to insult some group or another that they don’t like...
Yeah happens with some reptiles/amphibians etc.
With people? Only once that I know of.
Anna in conversation with snake friends...
Sally Snake: My god, Anna. What happened to you?
Anna: Please don’t worry. I don’t think it’s mine.
That was different :)
Actually, reptiles and amphibians and even many fish are known for being able to do this when the “demographic winter” falls on them. That is, there’s no critter of the opposite sex around, and their bodies obviously trigger responses that probably allowed them to survive after the great extinction.
Some of ‘em even change sex.
They’re called transfish.
Dang it, Anna - when I said GFY, I didn’t realize you were such a literalist!
-happened on my folks farm---
There’s hope, feminazis! maybe you can reproduce after all without having to touch a male!
I had a flighty lesbian employee who wanted to artificially inseminate. Doubt they ever succeeded. And I hope she never goes straight and breeds. Too many crazy people around as it is.
They do. But human beings, who are at the top of the food chain, don’t. No hermaphroditism here!
According to the famous Professional Hunter, Harry Selby, a farmer in Kenya, “- - - - kept a pair of ‘more or less tame’ female Spotted Hyenas in a cage for about 5 years.”
Much to everyone’s surprise, Mr. Selby said that BOTH females gave birth in the Spring of 1956 to healthy litters & that the litters members were all FEMALE pups. - Selby described that event, with typical British understatement, as “a great puzzlement”
Yours, TMN78247
I don’t know about anacondas, but female Burmese pythons can carry sperm for up to 10 years and fertilize eggs during that entire 10-year period with the sperm they are carrying from one contact.
Only once, and a true miracle because the child was a male.
Virgin births happen in nature, but tje offspring is always female. That’s all the mother has to offer.
Name all the baby snakes after house democrats. Name the oldest nancy pelosi.
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