Genetics Lesson: Female Boa constrictor reproduces without help from males

[Rabbi]

There is, perhaps, nothing terribly shocking about a female snake, placed in an enclosure with four male snakes, giving birth to two litters of baby snakes.

But what if those babies carry only their mother's genetic material?

Parthenogenesis—breeding without the, you know, breeding—has been documented in only a small handful of vertebrate species, but it does happen. However, usually, it takes the complete absence of males to get the vertebrate ladies going all virgin birthy. These baby boa constrictors, on the other hand, had plenty of potential fathers. But genetic tests have shown that none of the available male snakes is the dad. In addition, the babies are all female. All carry a rare caramel coloration. And all have a very weird mix of sex chromosomes.

In place of X and Y, snakes and many other reptiles have Z and W chromosomes. In all snakes, ZZ produces males and ZW produces females.

Bizarrely, all the snakes in these litters were WW.

This was further proof that the snakes inherited all their genetic material from their mother, as only females carry the W chromosome. "Essentially they are half clones of their mother," says Dr Booth. That is because the baby snakes have inherited two copies of one half of their mother's chromosomes, including one W chromosome.
You know the drill—I, for one, welcome our new female snake-Jesus overlords.

Biology Letters: Evidence for viable, non-clonal but fatherless Boa constrictors (And you can read the full text of the article for free! Also rare!)

BBC: Snake gives 'virgin birth' to extraordinary babies

Asexual reproduction in plants or animals.

 

[Seamaiden]

That is flipping WILD! I've read about it with another reptile or amphibian, but damn if I can remember now. I've gotta post this up somewhere else (where the geeks reign supreme). Very cool, Rabbi, thanks for sharing.

 

[Misterdirt]

It's a feminized snake!

 

[ent]

There's a breed of lizard that is indigenous here in SoCal. It breeds the same way. For the whole species of lizard there are zero males. It's the california whip tail.

You know what. Now you got me started. Even though the next part doesn't relate to breeding- imma break you down on some so cal lizard facts. Well maybe it does relate.

You know that blue belly lizard that is all over the place? It's called the fence lizard. It has a bacteria in its gut that kills off lyme disease. The lifecycle of a tick starts off with them being very small and finding small animals to attach to. When they bite the blue belly lizard it is thought the bacteria kills lyme disease. It is why you are not very likely to get lyme disease from ticks in CA but you will in other parts of the USA.

Now the second most common lizard in socal is the side blotch lizard. They have three distinctive genotypes which can be identified by a bright colored spot on their throats- either blue, yellow or orange. Each colored lizard has a specific set of traits that work out so they have a "rock, paper, scissors" approach to mating.

ORANGE = large territories and multiple females
YELLOW = stay in the outskirts of the Orange territories and mate with the orange females while the orange guy is trying to defend his large territory
BLUE = small territory where they can defend only one female. they can beat up the yellow males but they can't withstand the attacks from the orange males.

As a result ORANGE males will fight and steal mates from BLUE males while the YELLOW males will slide on in and snatch the females. BLUE males will lose their mates to ORANGE males, but they can defend against the YELLOW males.

Orange beats Blue, Blue beats Yellow and Yellow beats Orange

Do you now feel broken off?

 

[forehead]

Mycocepurus smithii, a variety of ant, has entirely female populations and seem to have stopped producing males.

Several types of sharks have had virgin births.

 

[up yours]

Very cool I have many royal pythons and love them, peace rabbi

 

[forehead]

Oh shit.. just found this




(CNN) -- It may be an old menu standby to Vietnamese diners, but it's turned into a smorgasbord of discovery for scientists.

Researchers have identified a previously undocumented species of all-female lizard in the Mekong River delta that can reproduce itself by cloning, and the story of how it was discovered is almost as exotic as the animal itself.

Leiolepis ngovantrii is a small lizard found only in southern Vietnam. A Vietnamese reptile scientist who came across tanks full of the remarkably similar looking reptiles at small diners in rural villages in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province became intrigued when he noticed that all of the lizards appeared to be female.

So the scientist, Ngo Van Tri of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, contacted an American colleague about what he was seeing. His friend -- a herpetologist at La Sierra University in Riverside, California -- immediately dropped everything to come out to assess the find.



Professor's lizard discovery in Vietnam Dr. Lee Grismer and his son, Jesse Grismer, a doctoral candidate, flew all the way to Hanoi and then faced a grueling two-day motorcycle trip out to a restaurant where the owner promised to set aside a stash of the creatures for study.

But there was a little problem, says Grismer.

"Unfortunately, the owner wound up getting drunk, and grilled them all up for his patrons... so when we got there, there was nothing left."

Another recent discovery: Red-bearded monkey

Faced with an empty tank and nearly dashed hopes, the men asked around at other cafes in the area for the local delicacy, and hired children to track down as many of the lizards as they could find.

The team soon had more than 60, and realized they had something special on their hands: a previously undocumented species.

"It's an entirely new lineage of life that was being eaten and sold in restaurants for food," says Grismer. "But it's something that scientists have missed for hundreds of years."

DNA sampling on the tiny reptiles brought another surprise: all of the lizards were female, and clones of their mothers.

It's a rare trait, but not unheard of. Some species of lizards and fish can adapt to parthenogenesis, or self-fertilization, especially when faced with adverse environments, pollution or over-hunting.

Grismer suspects that the lizards are a hybrid mix of two similar lizard species in the area, but one that is not sterile and is adapted to the increasing population of human farmers around it.

In fact, while scientists once led big expeditions to the most remote areas to find new animals, Grismer says today, that new frontier is quite often right in people's backyards.

"What we're finding is that local inhabitants know a tremendous amount about the natural histories of the regions in which they live," he says, adding that tapping into local knowledge has led to many new lizard discoveries. "It's not that they're not known... locals know all about them. It's just that they're not known to scientists."

So what does a plate full of Leiolepis ngovantrii taste like?

Well, nothing remotely like chicken, Grismer says.

"You wouldn't want to substitute it for a Big Mac or anything like that," he says, and you won't see lizard banh mi showing up on menus anytime soon.

Grismer complained that he had to hold his breath while eating the local dish to appear polite to the restaurant owners.

"You take a bite out of it and it feels like something very old and dead in your mouth," he said


pics here http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/11/10/lizard.lunch.discovery/?hpt=T2

 

[Seamaiden]

I LOVE stuff like this. Does anyone else here ever geek out on original descriptions? :o

 

[up yours]

Yup sis me