Boa Constrictor gives "virgin birth" ???

Being a snake buff (see avatar ) this is jaw dropping to me, apparently this boa gave birth to 22 young without sexual reproduction.

A boa constrictor mother has given "virgin birth" to 22 female offspring, all of which have no father and are half-clones of their mother, according to new research.

Has anyone here heard of snakes producing asexually??

The scientists next extracted and analyzed DNA from skins shed by the mother, the males and the caramel-colored offspring. This DNA fingerprinting, functioning like a paternity test, determined that the offspring exhibited a sex chromosomal arrangement of WW, "something never before naturally observed," Booth said.

Is this a captivity adaptation? Or some kind of evolutionary response for survival?

reply to post by amadeus30


My brothers we must follow the new star to the east and find these 22 new snake saviors... We will bring gifts of frankincense, myr, and mice.

reply to post by wisintel


Yep! Mary from the Bible and the Quran. As well other similar religious folklore. They all should be named Jesus.

Star and flag this is pretty cool!

I had heard of some amphibians doing it but not reptiles! Bit of Jurassic Park stuff going on...

I once had a corn snake that committed suicide.

i was wondering how long it would take for the jesus jokes to come in... didn't take long at all

Yes i've heard of amphibians and some sharks... but snakes? like i said, i've been a student of herpetology for about 10 yrs and this is new to me.

Thanks for the replies

What can I say... looks like the Snake from the Garden finally realized he'd been getting a raw deal and decided to do something about it. Now, we just wait for one of those 22 young to grow some feet and start crawling through the dust!

This is cool to hear about though. See if you can find follow-up articles. It would be interesting to see what happens to the 22 young'uns.

~ Wandering Scribe

Originally posted by wisintel
reply to post by amadeus30

 

My brothers we must follow the new star to the east and find these 22 new snake saviors... We will bring gifts of frankincense, myr, and mice.

Hahahhaha, thank you for that one wisintel. However, I think this means that David Icke was right the whole time! About what you ask? All of it!

WOW those must be worth alot of money, and with their color morphs, too...
Dang on !!!!

may they bless us in the end days .........

oh holy snakes .....

This smells like a ***HOAX***
or Either this animal could save sperm like theriphosids ( tarantulas )

This is a occurance that is said to also be possible with female humans, I don't have source link available, will see if I have time to dig up.
This seems to be a perservation of species feature that can kick in in extreme cases, another question would be if snake was a both sexed.

Originally posted by Big Raging Loner
Star and flag this is pretty cool!

I had heard of some amphibians doing it but not reptiles! Bit of Jurassic Park stuff going on...

I once had a corn snake that committed suicide.

How did it commit suicide? That's odd.

Originally posted by VenomVile.6
This smells like a ***HOAX***
or Either this animal could save sperm like theriphosids ( tarantulas )

A hoax? All the sources are pretty credible...and they've done a DNA test that proved it only had the mother's chromosomes... no male chromosomes were present in the offspring.

Did you read the article in the OP???

It's called Parthenogenesis, and it's fairly common in some other species.

Wiki

reply to post by amadeus30


there is no article in teh OP.

please post it.

Originally posted by Wertdagf
reply to post by amadeus30

 

there is no article in teh OP.

please post it.

Holy crap!! I forgot to link the frackin article!! I apologize sir.

You can find the article HERE

Again i apologize...

I remember seeing a story about a large female snake in captivity about 10-15 years ago who produced young asexually. She was stored in a glass aquarium with no other snakes around. It was said at the time that snakes have been known to do this occasionally.

This isn't really a new thing.

I know wiki isn't the most reliable of sources but there is some pretty good information here. Wiki

reply to post by juniperberry


yeah i've studied before about animals reproducing asexually when a mate is

1) Not available or
2) The available mates weren't fit genetically, (animals can sense when a mate is either not compatible or there is a genetic flaw of some sort)

but this particular boa was housed with "several healthy males" both times she has produced asexually, that was one thing that stood out to me while reading the articles google brought up.

I was hoping this thread would get a little more attention, i was curious as to different opinions.

I guess if you're not interested in snakes like i am, this could be of no importance to you
To me though this is big...

this is a hoax." but but link or else." shut up, i will not give you a link. you just have to decide for yourself. this snake is kept in a lab, god knows what they did to it. and why out of all the snakes, they just happen to keep this one in that lab.

Uh oh! The gig is up fellas.

You know what's in the future now. Super women (I mean even more super.....sry) with YY chromosome as the last pair. Just mothers having more daughters. With absolutely no need of men. Wow the future looks more confused everyday.

i was reading something about this yesterday they said if i can remember rite that two eggs could of joind together earlyer an all the babes from those eggs that joind were all female and that cold have something to do with it.
ill go see if i can find it ?