Virgin Birth in 2006?

Posted by Mike O on: 12.21.2006 /

I pulled this story from CNN. Sometimes all I can do is shake my head in awe of it all, be it nature, God, what have you.

Have a very merry Christmas everyone!

Mike

Virgin Komodo dragon is expecting
POSTED: 2104 GMT (0504 HKT), December 20, 2006

LONDON, England (Reuters) — 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. Other lizards do this, but scientists only recently found that Komodo dragons do too.

“Nobody in their wildest dreams expected this. But you have a female dragon on her own. She produces a clutch of eggs and those eggs turn out to be fertile. It is nature finding a way,” Kevin Buley of Chester Zoo in England said in an interview.

He said the incubating eggs could hatch around Christmas.

Parthenogenesis has occurred in other lizard species, but Buley and his team said this was the first time it has been shown in Komodo dragons — the world’s largest lizards.

Scientists at Liverpool University in northern England discovered Flora had had no male help after doing genetic tests on three eggs that collapsed after being put in an incubator.

The tests on the embryos and on Flora, her sister and other dragons confirmed that Komodo dragons can reproduce through self-fertilization.

“Those genetic tests confirmed absolutely that Flora was both the mother and the father of the embryos. It completely blew us away because it (parthenogenesis) has never been seen in such a large species,” Buley explained.

A Komodo dragon at London Zoo gave birth earlier this year after being separated from males for more than two years.

Scientists thought she had been able to store sperm from her earlier encounter with a male but, after hearing about Flora’s eggs, researchers conducted tests which showed her eggs were also produced without male help.

“You have two institutions within a few short months of each other having a previously unheard of event. It is really quite unprecedented,” said Buley.

The scientists, reporting the discovery in the science journal Nature, said it could help them understand how reptiles colonize new areas. A female dragon could, for instance, swim to another island and establish a new colony on her own.

“The genetics of self-fertilization in lizards means that all her hatchlings would have to be male. These would grow up to mate with their own mother and therefore, within one generation, there would potentially be a population able to reproduce normally on the new island,” Buley added.

7 Responses to "Virgin Birth in 2006?"

  • Comment by: Ir (Helen)

    1 12/21/06 11:34 AM | Comment Link |

    Thanks Mike - I heard about this on the news this morning. It’s a fascinating story.

  • Comment by: Siamang

    2 12/21/06 1:55 PM | Comment Link |

    As the distinguished mathematician Ian Malcolm said, “Life finds a way.”

    Sorry, chaotician.

    I think someone spliced her DNA with some west-african frogs.

    ;-)

  • Comment by: Karen

    3 12/21/06 3:10 PM | Comment Link |

    He said the incubating eggs could hatch around Christmas.

    It’s a Komodo Christmas miracle! ;-)

  • Comment by: David H

    4 12/21/06 5:46 PM | Comment Link |

    For some reason the line — Life finds a way — makes me think of scene from the movie “Dumb and Dumber.” When Lloyd (Jim Carrey)finally meets Mary (Lauren Holly) he blurts out: “What are the chances for a guy like me being with a girl like you?”

    “Not good,” responds Mary.

    “Like one in a hundred?” asks the ever-optomistic Lloyd.

    “More like one in a million,” Mary answers.

    “So, you’re saying there’s a chance.”

    I guess that’s what life says all the time.

  • Comment by: benjamin ady

    5 12/21/06 7:47 PM | Comment Link |

    I think Komodo Dragons are gorgeous. We have some here at Woodland Park Zoo. but the whole self fertilization thing is a bit creepus, IMO. See a short slide show of our Komodo Dragons here

  • Comment by: tai haku

    6 12/21/06 8:51 PM | Comment Link |

    I like the way it only seems to be slightly menacing animals that “find a way”. The last story along these lines evolved sharks,its like the world’s captive animals are trying to spook out crichton fans.

  • Comment by: Eliza

    7 12/22/06 10:15 PM | Comment Link |

    This is so cool! And apropos to the season, indeed, at least in the etymology of the word (Greek parthenos + genesis).

    I was confused about the offspring being male - knew that in birds ZZ is male and ZW is female (whereas in mammals, XX is female and XY is male), but I’d never thought about other animals. But it makes sense that reptiles would have genetics more similar to birds than to us (given the dinosaur-bird connection). It’s a really good “design” ;-) to have the offspring of parthenogenesis be male, since then they can become Oedipal as adults and mate with mom.