Virgin Birth at Christmastime

[michaeledward]

This report about a female Komodo Dragon is pregnant ... and she has never been in the company of a male Komodo Dragon.

Man ... this world is Cool!

Parthenogenesis

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/20/uk.komodo.reut/index.html

Flora, a pregnant Komodo dragon living in a British zoo, is expecting eight babies in what scientists said on Wednesday could be a Christmas virgin birth.
Flora has never mated, or even mixed, with a male dragon, and fertilized all the eggs herself, a process culminating in parthenogenesis, or virgin birth.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

that is so cool. i mean, you hear of species being able to do that, but it's still cool.

nature: god's way of giving us human smartasses the raspberry.

i wonder, how long will it take the kimodo dragons to start having wars over whether or not god was really involved in this?

 

[Flying Crane]

eight komodo dragon messiahs!! rock on!!

 

[bushidomartialarts]

sound like a metallica song:

'bow to kimodo messiah!"

 

[oddball]

When reading, I was wondering if the babies will have the exact same DNA as her?
This bad (inbreeding of kids? yeah yeha, only supposed to be 2% problems, but still...)

 

[mrhnau]

This report about a female Komodo Dragon is pregnant ... and she has never been in the company of a male Komodo Dragon.

Man ... this world is Cool!

Parthenogenesis

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/20/uk.komodo.reut/index.html

Thats really cool! I'd be interested in seeing what kind of genetic makeup the kids have. That would be an interesting study

The Wiki on Parthenogenesis

 

[ArmorOfGod]

There are many species of fish that can do this as well. Rock lizard, geckos, and whip tail lizards can occasionally to this as well. Also, aphids do this.

Read this interesting bit I found at one site: "In many social insects, such as the honeybee and the ant, the unfertilized eggs give rise to the male drones and the fertilized eggs to the female workers and queens."

Things like this fascinate me to no end.

AoG

 

[oddball]

Does anyone know if these were born yet?