Snake's double virgin birth

datelinezero.com

A female snake has stunned scientists by twice given birth without mating, it has been revealed. The large litters of female boa constrictors showed no male influence at all – no genetic fingerprint that a male was involved in the reproductive process.

The discovery turns decades of scientific theories about reptile reproduction on its head. The mum shunned the four males she shares a home with to asexually produce the two broods of clones.

Scientists from North Carolina State University were puzzled by the fact the boa constrictor had previously had babies 'the old fashioned way' by mating with a male well before the rare births.

All the snakes produced by the 'super mum' snake were female and researchers were shocked to see they had attributes previously deemed impossible. All the female babies, produced two years apart, also retained their mother's rare recessive colour mutation.

Researcher Dr Warren Booth said: This is the first time asexual reproduction, known in the scientific world as parthenogenesis, has been attributed to boa constrictors.

The results may force scientists to re-examine reptile reproduction, especially among more primitive snake species like boa constrictors.

The study, published in Biology Letters, a Royal Society journal, explained how male snakes' cells have two Z chromosomes, whole female snakes' cells have a Z and a W.

Yet all the female babies produced had WW chromosomes, a phenomenon never seen before.


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