Miracle rainbow boa litter

[mikel81]

Wow this is pretty awesome. What a cool surprise.

Did you previously think she was a male or is she mislabeled in you signature?

[Foxtuning65]

Previously thought to be a male. I was old by the guy who left her in a box at a pet store that she was a male. (I tracked him down after picking her up because she had an RI) it's just unbelievable. I don't think the wife will let me sell them either haha

[serpent fan]

Truly a miracle snake! Also, total lol at the spunk comments

[Foxtuning65]

Truly a miracle snake! Also, total lol at the spunk comments

That's exactly why she won't let me sell them haha

[serpent fan]

Becase shes a spunk hoarder...gross!

[Foxtuning65]

Becase shes a spunk hoarder...gross!

Hahahahaha

[ball-nut]

Man, 4 years....
That's some funky spunk.

[serpent fan]

Yeah...mad funky

[Foschi Exotic Serpents]

I doubt she stored sperm.. If she was never with a male then she's falls into this rare category..

If a Burmese at the Amsterdam zoo has done it for years now then who is to say your boa has not just produced her own clones of herself?

Check it out..

http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v9.../6800210a.html

"Parthenogenesis among reptiles is rare. Only a few species have the ability to reproduce asexually. Most of these are obligate parthenogenetic species that consist (almost) entirely of females, which can reproduce solely through parthenogenesis. Rarer are sexual species that only sporadically reproduce through parthenogenesis. A female Python molurus bivittatus (Reptilia, Boidae) from the Artis Zoo, Amsterdam, produced eggs in five consecutive years that contained embryos while she was isolated from males. These eggs might be fertilized with stored sperm, or might be the product of parthenogenesis. Parthenogenesis has not been shown for the Boidae family before. We performed parentship analyses on the snake and seven of her embryos using microsatellites and AFLP. Four microsatellite loci developed for this species combined with three loci developed previously for different snake species revealed too little variation to discriminate between sperm retention and parthenogenesis. With AFLP we were able to confirm that the Artis Zoo female reproduced parthenogenetically. Because the offspring are genetically identical to their mother, whereas in previous studies on sporadic parthenogenesis in snakes a loss of genetic information was reported, we conclude that the meiotic pathways that produce the diploid egg cells are different."


----> Signature <----
*Factoid: "There are no such things as Hogg Island or Columbian boas"

[Foxtuning65]

That's crazy. I have been contacted by a professor at NC State to do some testing to find out if it was parthenogenesis. It will be so cool they are. Looks like these two babies aren't going anywhere.