Unusual egg laying experience.

[MarkS]

I've seen this before in other species of snake, but this is the first time I've witnessed it in ball pythons. This female is only a couple of years old and has never been with a male, she's never even been in a cage with another snake of any kind. I picked her up a couple of years ago as a captive hatched female along with a few others from Ben Seigel. I just wanted to throw this out there as an example that ball pythons can and will lay eggs when THEY feel like it and not when WE decide they should.

I found her this morning while I was going through tubs changing water bowls and doing some spot cleaning. I saw her coiled up in the classic bee hive position and thought, 'she looks odd, what the heck is up with her?' So when I went to examine her a little more closely I found that she was coiled around three infertile eggs. I thought I'd take a few pictures as proof.

Here she is still coiled around her eggs.


Not very big is she?


Three slugs, weighing less then some single fertile eggs.


Look how small these things are.


Here she is without the eggs, 700 grams and that's it.


It'll be interesting to see how she grows after this. Will she keep putting on size? Or will she stop and just stay small while producing small clutches?

I thought this would be a good learning opportunity for anyone who had questions about whether or not their snakes can lay eggs without a male present... Yup, just like chickens.

[CoolioTiffany]

She will keep putting on size, though, I've never really seen pictures of a female wrapped around infertile eggs. This was quite interesting actually. Was she trying to protect them? (trying to strike at you if you got too close)

[Spaniard]

Thats pretty cool mark; it would have been pretty amazing if they were fertile eggs.

I wonder what happens behind the scenes biologically when this happens; if both sets of genes are hers or if the eggs only have one set of genes which is why they were slugs?

[waltah!]

Thanks for posting that up, Mark. I've never seen this happen before either.

[MarkS]

She will keep putting on size, though, I've never really seen pictures of a female wrapped around infertile eggs. This was quite interesting actually. Was she trying to protect them? (trying to strike at you if you got too close)

No, she never struck at me. Though I think that has more to do with personality then with the eggs being infertile. I've got larger adult females that won't strike when I'm unwrapping them from their fertile clutches. Most will be protective, but I do have a few that don't strike.

[Tyler_Royality]

thats pretty wicked Mark, ive never heard of Balls having ovi going full term like that.

[kc261]

The scientific name for this (at least when babies are actually produced) is parthenogenesis. If you search the forum, there have been a few threads on this before. I only glanced through the search results quickly, but these 2 threads look like likely cases of parthenogenesis in BPs (assuming the poster is reporting things accurately). One had definitely fertile eggs but they did not make it to hatching, the other had some eggs hatch out.
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?t=49600
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?t=61943

I know it has been proven in Komodo dragons, and I believe a few other reptiles. The babies are genetic clones of mom.

[MarkS]

The thing I found most curious was the fact that she didn't reabsorb her follicles despite not having been bred but instead allowed them to go full cycle.

A friend of mine made a suggestion that makes sense to me. I had a spare tub that wasn't being used on one of my CB70 breeder racks, so instead of leaving it empty, I moved this girl up early from her small sweater box tub figuring she would appreciate the extra space. So, she had breeding going on all around her in pretty close proximity. I wonder if the smells of all that breeding were what stimulated her to finish her egg cycle instead of reabsorbing the follicles despite not having the stimulation of actual breeding?

[TimmyG]

I once had an emporor scorpion have vigin babys. she had 5, 3 were DOA and the other 2 never made it past their first molt. When she was gravid I thougth I'm over feeding him (thought the scorpion was male) and put him in a diet. Probably wasnt the best idea.

[fishmommy]

awww......cute little momma.

she's just practicing

Fish do that all the time too....I always think they're trying to impress me into buying them a boyfriend