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A possible case of Parthenogensis with an Eastern Kingsnake.

The mother hasn't been with a male for at least 7 years. That's how long we've had her. Whether she had ever been with a male prior to that with the previous owner i don't know. I can't tell at this point if it's a record for sperm retention or parthenogensis at work.

After 62 days of incubating, the lone surviving egg began hatching today, July 21, 2006.

Incubating between 78-85 F. (I seem to have better luck with a variable temp incubation for herps than a steady temp).

Of the 10 eggs...4 slugs, 6 good. Of the 6, 4 eventually started showing blood vessels when candled. A couple weeks later, the 2 not showing blood vessels began to mold and go bad. Of the remaining 4, eventually the blood vessels got smaller and smaller on 3 of them and disappeared altogether and mold took over., leaving me with the one egg left.

Excuse the blurry-ness of the photo..took it with my camera phone. The good digital camera is at work.

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PHWyvern

Incredible! I suppose DNA of mother and child would be different if the neo was product of a very delayed fertilization, indentical (a clone) if not...you think?

...and if you buy that logic; if it is parthenogenesis, then a "poor man's" DNA test would be that the neo's pattern would be identical to the mothers?

>>...and if you buy that logic; if it is parthenogenesis, then a "poor man's" DNA test would be that the neo's pattern would be identical to the mothers?

FR pointed out to me back in May when I brought up about the eggs being laid that there are two types of parthenogensis.. one type produces all females and the other (automictic parthenogenesis) produces all males. This was a link I found when he told me to look up some information on a Dr. Gordon Schuett

http://home.pcisys.net/~dlblanc/articles/Parthenogenesis.php
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PHWyvern

OK, homework time. Thanks for the link, and congrats on your success. Take care of that little one.
Bill

My first job was a lizard collector. When I was 10 years old my mother saw an ad in the local classifieds for a “lizard catcher”. The University Of New Mexico (UNM) was doing a research project and needed a reliable supplier of some local lizards. We mostly had two types of lizards around town, “blutails” or New Mexico whiptail lizards (cnemidophorus neomexicanus), and “sanddiggers” or lesser earless lizards. UNM was looking for bluetails. They were offering to pay 10 cents for each NM whiptail we delivered.

The research team, (mostly college girls) were terrible at catching lizards. My little brother (Jimmy) and I were pros at it and caught them by the bucketful. We did this for three summers. We even made 20 cents each for lizards with two tails. At first we thought that they were using the lizards to feed to other reptiles but each time we would deliver them we would place one each in a plexiglass container. They had these set up by the hundreds in a large outside court yard.

Some of the girls on the research team explained to my brother and I that they were doing a study on the mating habits of these lizards. As it turned out the New Mexico whiptail is parthenogenic. The little stripped whiptail, and the western whiptail interbred to produce the New Mexico whiptail, a unisex hybrid. The NM whiptail cannot adapt or evolve as other species do. All NM whiptails are females, its eggs require no fertilization and they are genetic clones of the mother. Although they are genetic clones I've seen a fair amount of physical differences in the offspring ie... some with two tails, dot-dash stripping, etc...Parthenogenic traits are faily common in the whiptail family and probably not all that uncommon throughout the reptile family.

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Vichris

Vichris Variables

You should call the snake Anaken Skywalker or Annie if it's a girl
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2.4 E. prasina
3.3 L. m. thayeri
1.1 A. stimsoni
1.1 C. t. roseofusca
1.2 L. t. gaigeae

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.- Albert Einstein

Wow! Fascinating story. I'm glad you shared it with us. It's not the first time for me hearing of a story like that. But seven years??? That IS a first! Usually it's two or three years which may indicate possible sperm retention in females. But yours is definetely a rarity! I sure hope he/she gets out of the egg alright. Good luck with it and post a pic of it when it's all the way out.

Zee
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"I am an expert on everything, but I know so little and have so much to learn!" -Carsten "Zee" Zoldy-

Congrats and now consider, there has never been any proof that sperm retention has resulted in offspring after a few months of breeding. Or better yet, after a winter.

Sperm retention has only been a possible event, but has never been proven. The same work that proofed parthenogenetic reproduction in snakes could proof sperm retention for longtern deplayed fertililization. I do not believe its ever been actually tested a prooved.

Also, pattern and color is proven to have a degree of randomness, as even cloned cats/sheep/cows, etc, are not identical to their offspring in this area. So far, the general type and color of pattern is identical, but not exact color or exact banding. Cheers

I certainly agree that this event is exciting and asks a whole lot more questions than it answers. I can also assure you that if I were in charge of genetics, the whole subject would be far more simple! LOL!
It would be nice to see pics of Madonna and Child...
Bill

Photos of the Mother. I will get pictures of the baby once it is fully out of the egg.
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PHWyvern

The baby has left the egg. I will take her to work tomorrow to get some good pics. For now all I have is this bad camera phone photo of her getting ready to strike at my cell phone.

I assume it's a she ... short stubby tail (approx. 31 tail ventrals). She is a fat sassy thing...already musking and tail buzzing and snapping with lightening fast reflexes. Haven't measured or weighed her yet...but figure she's not quite 10 inches long.. certainly has a good weight for the size...not a scrawny thing.

She doesn't really seem to take after her mother lol. The mom has a heavily checkered pattern along the entire belly while the baby has like only 13 tiny checks..most of them on the lower half of the body..the upper half is pretty much a clean solid cream (tinted pink down the center from the blood vessels). The baby also has a lot of striping on the side right above the belly and a little bit of a stripe down the back of the neck..mom doesn't.

Both the mom and baby are not great looking when it comes to a nice clean chain pattern of an eastern king. They are both very heavily on the broken side, but when compared to each other the baby has a much better pattern than the mother..definitely an improvement there. On both snakes most of the complete chains are on the lower half of the body ..the upper half is mostly broken up.

The only odd thing I could find about this snake has to do with the scales on the underside of the tail.. instead of having clean rows of divided scales beyond the anal plate... they flip flop between divided scales and undivided scales.: 5 divided, 3 undivided, 2 divided, 4 undivided, 3 divided, ~10 undivided, 4 divided.... very weird.

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PHWyvern