What makes the birth unique is that this particular snake is believed to be the first of its species to have the ability to have offspring from unfertilized eggs, known to scientists as “parthenogenesis”. A captive snake in southeast Missouri has reproduced without a male companion.
A female yellow-bellied water snake gave birth without any help from a male member of the species.
As per the conservation department, there are no reports of other cases of parthenogenesis by a yellow-bellied water snake. None of this year’s babies have survived.
Researchers said that the snake is in her prime breeding age but having no access to any male made her body react that changed her reproductive system and survive reproduction alone.
Times Gazette reported the yellow-bellied at Missouri’s Cape Girardeau Conservation Nature Center snake has not been close to a male snake for eight years.
This kind of reproduction has been seen in birds, insects and reptiles, but in snakes, including cottonmouths, copperheads and Burmese pythons such a kind of thing has been seen rarely.
Virgin birth, in this case, is scientifically referred to as parthenogensis, or asexual reproduction.
Not only that, but this type of snake doesn’t give birth to eggs, but rather has live births. It’s also unclear whether offspring of virgin births can go on to reproduce.
“Long-term storage is unusual”.
“There is always a high proportion of infertile eggs due to chromosome combination”, said Jeff Briggler of the Missouri Department of Conservation, “but a few can be successful and hatch if the mother has a dissimilar sex chromosome (ZW) compared to the male with copies of the ZZ chromosome”. “If nothing else, it’s an interesting phenomena …Whether this is long-term storage or parthenogenesis, it’s cool … just another sign that nature works in mysterious ways”. “You learn things about what they’re capable of”, says AJ Hendershott, the outreach and education supervisor for the local conservation department.
It is still unknown whether or not last year’s offspring can reproduce sexually but they seem to being doing well in captivity.