Immaculate Deception?

By Steve Connor

The world's largest lizard has astonished biologists by being able to produce offspring by an "immaculate" conception without the help of a male.

Two captive female Komodo dragons have had virgin births by a process called parthenogenesis, when an unfertilised egg develops into a normal embryo without being fertilised by a sperm.

The eggs of one of the lizards - a female called Flora at Chester Zoo - are due to hatch early in the new year, said Kevin Buley, one of the zoo's curators.

"Although other lizard species are known to be able to self-fertilise, this is the first time this has ever been reported in Komodo dragons," Mr Buley said.

"Essentially what we have here is an immaculate conception ... and it is a possibility that the incubating eggs could hatch around Christmas time," he said.

"We will be on the look out for shepherds, wise men and an unusually bright star over Chester Zoo."

All the offspring produced by parthenogenesis are male which, unlike mammals, are the result of two identical sex chromosomes - in reptiles it is the females that have two different sex chromosomes. The study is published in Nature magazine.

One theory is that parthenogenesis allows Komodos to establish breeding colonies from sole females that have swum to distant islands. Although the parthenogenic offspring will be all males, they would be still able to mate with their own mother to produce both males and females in subsequent generations.

Originally posted here.

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