Parthenogenisis

[Bogertophis]

Good luck but don't get your hopes up. I have 2 adult female Florida rat snakes (yellow x gulf hammock & maybe some Everglades?) that have never mated
either, and every year each one produces double clutches of slugs AND what look like some good eggs, (over 2 dozen each) but the ones that appear viable
always go bad eventually. These poor girls try so hard to populate the planet with their kids, and I have adult mates* in the other room too, I'm SO "mean"...
*Actually their brothers, & even if they weren't, I don't need to be mass-producing them...yikes! they are SO FERTILE! And they're about 11 years old now
too...I hope they slow down, or better yet, just knock it off! The males are twice the size of the females, they spend so much just making those eggs!

I have had true parthenogenesis take place many years back with an older rosy boa given to me by a nature museum where she'd been housed with 2 other
females for most of her life thus far (about 15 years). Long story... but with apparently no mate ever, she had a live baby for me. Sad though, it had
defects (one eye, crooked neck) & only lived 8 mos.- so rather than chance her doing that again next year (since her health was vastly improved under my care),
I decided to put her with a healthy male, & for 5 years she tried to fill the world with rosy boas. She had 49 neonates total, all healthy & feisty & not inbred,
before I finally convinced her to retire. She passed away at roughly age 26 after being with me for her last 11 years...she was a cool ol' mama for sure!
I truly never wanted to breed rosy boas, & especially not an older female, but one year when she didn't breed, she nearly died: see the live babies pretty much
push their own way out, but with slugs and an old snake that had poor muscle tone (she'd been chronically under-fed in the museum, refusing food due to stress
and inadequate heat in their cages) she was so weak after pushing out slugs that I thought she might die. I tube-fed her for a few weeks & she recovered...she
really amazed me. So that's why I let her breed for 5 years, until I sensed she really would quit...& she did, finally. She was "retired" for another 5 years after
that.