After 8 years in captivity and alone, female snake gives birth to baby snakes - Times Gazette

This water snake in Missouri’s Cape Girardeau Conservation Nature Center has lived in captivity with no contact with male snakes for 8 years in the least now. And, she has managed to give birth to baby snakes, for the second consecutive year.  Researchers at the Missouri Center believe that the snake may also be the first in her species to experience ‘virgin births’ which is more common in insects according Jordi Brostoski, a naturalist. Brostoski also added that this does not happen very often in snakes.

In more scientific expression, the virgin birth of the snake is a process that involves asexual reproduction known as parthenogenesis wherein a female produces babies with genetic contribution from male members.  A polar body can function nearly like a sperm to fertilize the egg.

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