Scientists discover a virgin birth in a crocodile

COSTA RICA – In January 2018, a female crocodile in a Costa Rican zoo laid a clutch of eggs. That was peculiar: She had been living alone for 16 years.And one of them – in a plot twist familiar to anyone who has watched “Jurassic Park” – continued to mature in an incubator. In this case, the egg eventually yielded a perfectly formed but stillborn baby crocodile.

Here’s how a virgin birth happens: As an egg cell matures in its mother’s body, it divides repeatedly to generate a final product with exactly half the genes needed for an individual. That’s what appears to have happened in the case of the crocodile, said Warren Booth, an associate professor at Virginia Tech who has studied the eggs.

This is precisely what happens in parthenogenesis in birds, lizards and snakes, Prof Booth said, suggesting that this group of animals inherited the ability from a common ancestor.

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