Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

ghastly152 · Contributing Member Joined: 09 Nov 2006 Posts: 50

Thought this may be of interest to people. Not sure if this is the right place for it, please move if its wrong.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/24012007/80-132/komodo-dragon-proud-mum-dad-five.html

Peter Parrot · Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 3:53 pm Post subject:

Interesting link. Thanks John. Wink

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Jackie · Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 3:55 pm Post subject:

Oh great news. There was a news article about this over Christmas as they were hoping the eggs would hatch in time for Christmas. It was discussed here: http://www.captivebred.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7643

It's nice to have a follow up and know the eggs have and are about to hatch successfully. Thanks for posting. Very Happy

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H.S. · Key Member Joined: 02 Nov 2006 Posts: 481 Location: Kent

They have just shown the Dragon and offspring on the BBC afternoon news, with an interview of a couple of Chester Zoo employees. It'll probably be repeated tonight.
Apparently the young will on display to the public at Easter.

arborgoanna · Contributing Member Joined: 30 Nov 2005 Posts: 128

It's a shame that Komodos are getting all of the attention lately regarding parthenogenesis; parthenogenesis is not something new in Varanus, as it was first reported in V. panoptes in 2005- long before the more recent Nature paper reporting on parthenogenetic V. komodoensis eggs.

The V. panoptes paper also went into much greater detail about the event; the recent V. komodoensis paper is rather vague, and makes several evolutionary 'assumptions' about the nature of the occurrence..

I feel that all of these news reports need to mention the previous report involving V. panoptes, instead of promoting this as something new. This is deceiving to the general public.

Scott W · Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 10:56 am Post subject:

stubeanz · Key Member Joined: 03 Jan 2007 Posts: 350 Location: herts

sorry if this sounds stupid but would this mean they are clones of the mother? i remember hearing about this when she laid them, good to know they hatched out fine Very Happy

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Michael C · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 12:18 pm Post subject:

No, these were not clones. The progeny of parthenogenesis are not necessarily clones. With monitors it is more obvious, because the offspring are males.
Cheers,
Michael

puddlesplash · Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 3:02 pm Post subject:

i always thought the offspring werent always males because the genes the females carry are 'zy' rather than xx like human females. I read this in a book, mark bayless did a little article on it. Some people refer to it as cloning as obviously it is only the genes from one carrier but because theyre 'zy' (thats what the chromosomes where referred as) u can obviously get zy and yy (males). I may be wrong as i dont have the book on me to quote it, will check it when i get home Idea

Michael C · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 2:18 am Post subject:

The sexual chromosomes in monitors are ZW/ZZ with ZZ being a male. Since in parthenogenesis the sexual chromosome must be replicated to produce viable offspring, only ZZ could be produced. Lenk et al. 2006, A parthogenetic Varanus, describes it in detail, but it is common sense when you think the only other combination that could be replicated is WW, which is not viable.

This is similar to other parthogenetic reptiles with XY/XX chromosomes, like Hemidactylus garnotii, where replication of the sexual chromosome produces XX resulting in nothing but females being produced.

Cheers,
Michael