question on egg laying without male involvement.

[MarkS]

I was just thinking about this and I don't ever remember seeing an answer to it. Have you ever gotten eggs from your ball pythons WITHOUT ever breeding them? I'm not talking about breeding and getting slugs, or about putting a male with them and just not witnessing any breeding behavior, I'm talking about getting a clutch of infertile eggs without ever even introducing a male.

I've had this happen several times to me with colubrids, even with colubrids that have NEVER been with a male since the day they hatched. But I can't think of a time that it's ever happened to me with ball pythons.

It's possible that it's never happened to me because I breed most of my adult girls every year at least once so it's no surprise when I get eggs, but the few that I hold back for that season for one reason or the other have never laid a surprise clutch of eggs for me and I was just wondering what everyone else's experiences were.

[Bluebead]

I have heard of female BPs retaining sperm for over a year and producing hatchlings.

Virgin females??? never heard of it.
Of course mine get nailed as soon as they are momma sized.

[ncbloods]

lol, when I first saw the title to this thread I thought there was going to be a birds and the bees talk.

Like you mentioned, I have heard of it happening with colubrids, but I haven't seen/heard it with pythons.

[southb]

infertile eggs

Yup

[West Coast Jungle]

I have heard of it in BP's but it has never happened to me or anyone I know.

Mark when I first read your thred title I thought, "Thats funny my males never help females lay?" DUH!!!

[MarkS]

I have heard of it in BP's but it has never happened to me or anyone I know.

Mark when I first read your thred title I thought, "Thats funny my males never help females lay?" DUH!!!

Haha, yeah sorry about that. I guess I could have been a little clearer on the title...

[Lucas339]

i have herd of this with other animals. didn't know BP could to it.

[kc261]

I've seen a few threads on here that were possibly cases of... I'm too tired to remember or look up the word, but producing young without mating. Komodo dragons and a few other herps are known to be capable of it.

I don't believe in either case that it was absolutely certain, but it had certainly been a long time since any possible mating (more than 12 months I'm pretty sure).

That doesn't answer the question about laying infertile eggs though.

[pitbulls4me]

So for females the egg forming process isn't one that happens naturally without being bred? Like turtles for instances, most females will lay eggs even if they arent fertilized because it is a natural body process. Chickens are another one that lay without the need to be fertilized. Of course these eggs wont hatch into something. I wonder what causes some egg layers to produce the eggs as a regular thing and others only when they have been bred?

[janeothejungle]

It's called parthenogenesis and yes, it's been documented in pythons.

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

The eggs are not necessarily infertile, they can be clones of mom.


~Kat