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danceswithsavs
I'm new here...
Joined: 02 Dec 2006
Posts: 15
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 Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:13 am Post subject: Komodo parthenogenesis |
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http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2006-12-20T181018Z_01_L1874881_RTRUKOC_0_US-BRITAIN-DRAGONS.xml&src=122006_1441_ARTICLE_PROMO_also_on_reuters
| Quote: | LONDON (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. |
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herp_boi
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Joined: 25 Sep 2006
Posts: 732
Location: Big old Brighton
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:20 am Post subject: |
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very good mate it certainly is "nature finding it's way!"
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0.0.10 varanus acanthurus eggs. 
0.0.31 Heterodon nasicus eggs.
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Scott W
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Joined: 15 Apr 2004
Posts: 13355
Location: London, England.
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:29 am Post subject: |
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Anyone know where they get her from and how long have they had her?
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signchris
Contributing Member
Joined: 11 Dec 2006
Posts: 76
Location: Athens Greece
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:17 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for the info man!
First time i heard something like this.
Christos |
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Rickeezee
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Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Posts: 9249
Location: Kent
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:18 pm Post subject: |
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I can find out. See my post under general.
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garysumpter
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Joined: 07 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:34 pm Post subject: |
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This made me smile when I read it this morning.
Gary
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davo
Captivebred Communist
Joined: 15 Oct 2006
Posts: 1091
Location: glos.
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 1:03 pm Post subject: |
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| same gary. When i saw her in the summer i didnt realise the other babies werent hers. |
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JStroud
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Joined: 10 Dec 2004
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Location: Bucks
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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| davo wrote: | | same gary. When i saw her in the summer i didnt realise the other babies werent hers. |
 The babies were hers, but through a parthenogenetic phenomonem she internally self-fertilized without the help of a male. So in theory all the babies hatched are genetic clones of herself. I think it's only been recorded once in one other varanid (?) and only a handful of times in the whole reptilian taxonomy...
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thomas mcpherson
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Joined: 27 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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| i herd that it had not been mated in three years that what i was told |
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JStroud
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Joined: 10 Dec 2004
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Location: Bucks
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| Posted: Thu Dec 21, 2006 5:53 pm Post subject: |
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The female was young when it was arrived, it had previously been kept with its male siblings but mating is highly doubtful as they were all immature at the time. As far as everyone knows it has never been mated...
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