Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Did you hear about the komodo dragon giving "virgin birth" with the due date around Christmas? Sorry, don't have the link...

HC

Interesting.
Link

LOL, I was just comin' in to post the link. Pretty interesting story, don'tcha think?

Quig
-----
Don't interupt me when I'm talkin' to myself

and im still going to; there
this is some jurassic park type fiction eh? well good for her anyway, she must be lonely

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061220/sc_nm/britain_dragons_dc
Link

-----
Christian M. Hidalgo
The Woodlands, TX 77381

"Virgin dragon to give birth in holiday season"

Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

Rut Ro!!! Now ya got me worried
-----
Don't interupt me when I'm talkin' to myself

Hi Neal, I have a few virgin ackie eggs due to hatch as well. I have seen this many times. And I may have hatched some in the past, but I did not pay much attention to it.

It has been very normal for a female that has not been bred to lay a clutch of eggs that is mostly infertile, with a 1/4 or so, appearing fertile. I would just stick the good looking ones in with the other normal ones. I think in most cases, they failed.

This last time, I am keeping the eggs seperate and so far so good. Cheers

Very interesting, Frank. Since hearing about other apparently parthenogenic cases earlier this year, I stuck a couple caudo eggs that I thought looked good in the incubator. Nothing came of it, but I may keep trying.

I reckon that I'll need more mice soon.

Cheers,
Neal

Have you ever kept a animal totally alone and have it lay any fertile eggs? The Komodo story says that the Dragon was living with its sister?
Thanks
Todd Thompson

im not that religious
but this whole "virgin mary" dragon thing is cause enough for me to start rethinking

well if anything im going to have a toast to this endangered monitor, for bringing forth their "savior", hah, weird tho huh?
Link

-----
Christian M. Hidalgo
The Woodlands, TX 77381

Dude, KD's are considered endangered because they have a small island range. Now because they are rare. They are very common and produce very well in nature. They simply have a restricted range. They do not need to be bred in captivity to exsist. They simply need their habitat to remain or expand. Which it is, I have heard.

The major fear is volcanos. Their habitat is on volcanic islands, one erruption and they are gone. At least thats the fear at this time. The local population of humans do not impact their habitat because the monitors produce far more income as a tourist industry. Cheers

Yes, and its actually very common. Literature in the past is full of what was thought to be sperm storage. We all know reptiles store sperm for a short period, so it was assumed they stored it for many years as well. The problem was, assuming, as no DNA tests were available or done.

Recently, in the last decade, DNA testing as changed that landscape. Now many of these previously thought to be sperm storage events have proven to be parthnogenic reproductions.

One silly event was published in Reptiles mag. A report of a green iggie laying fertile eggs and some hatched. They reported that this female had not been with another iggie since it was a hatchling. They then assumed it stored sperm since it was a hatchling. hahahahahahahahahahaha

This articule clearly shows how folks refuse to think(use common sense). They simply go by what they read. If anyone would have used their heads, they would understand hatchlings do not have developed sexual organs. There is no way to hold, recieve, store sperm in a non sexually mature animal.

This has gone on for years.

Again recently Dr. Gordon Shuett has published a long list of non parthnogenic species, producing parthnogenetically. He listed two types of this occuring.

He did not list any monitors, but there is good reason for that. Numbers, so very few monitors are kept in decent conditions that will allow them to reproduce. The average condition for monitors only allows their death.

I have seen these parthnogenic events occur with monitors over the entire time I have kept them. But I did not keep specific track. In other words, my task was not to check for monitors being parthnogenic, but to produce viable offspring.

Recently I had two female ackies produce 15 clutches in a year(14 months) So I removed the male. I had done this many times in the past. As in the past, these females laid eggs anyway. The results of this has always been consistant. These eggs will be mostly infertile with a quarter or so being fertile appearing. This is exactly what is expressed in one type of the discribed parthnogenic events.

The point is, its now commonplace. Its merely another thing that there was no reason to look at or for. In otherwords, its no big deal. I believe I will still practice using males if I hope to produce a certain species. Cheers

When the females have reproduced with a male in the past and later lay eggs, like your ackies you mention, you can't assume not sperm storage any more than you can assume not parthenogenesis. Without those DNA parentage techniques, there isn't more basis for saying it's one vs. the other if the female has ever been with a male.

Now what would be interesting is, if a species can be confirmed for all three modes of reproduction. Any indication of both parthenogenesis and sperm storage from your critters would have to come from tightly controlled experiments with subsequent parentage tests. Surely some gel jock out there is game for the sequencing work.

actually I do not have to beg. And I can assume any old thing I want, every body else does. hahahahahahahaha true too.

There is more to it. First off, If you know the history of a female, that is if she has bred one male in her life, you KNOW, thru repeated experience what her offspring look like. Unfortunately those without this experience have no base to work from. Then if not bred and produces a "different" offspring, that is evidence. On a side note, thru experience, I can tell what male a females from the appearance of her offspring. Again experience, If you have hatched 1000"s of ackies, I bet you could too. Also this type of parthno reproduction, causes a low fertility rate and all male offspring. More things to base an assumption on. Lastly, and very specifically, DNA testing is the only true test. Which I will not do, unless someone comes and gets them and test them at their own expense.

IF you would have paid attention, I have said, such things as possible, non-copulation, etc. Not these are this. You will have to go back to past discussions to get this one, but I do expect that from you.

And more, I have repeatedly mentioned, its not important to me. Its not. Been there done THIS, with other reptiles. For over three decades. I am sorry that varanid biology is so backward. But theres nothing I want to do about it, except go my merry way. Surely its the season to be merry. So I will.

I also mentioned, previous eggs for non breedings failed to hatch, at least the ones I kept an eye on(again, not a close eye, cause I could careless) Also as I mentioned, its only of slight interest. THese eggs have not hatched, so its totally meaningless until they do, HEY? hahahahahahahahaha no chickens before they hatch and all. I would think anyone with knowledge understands this BEFOREHAND, so you should have, hey? Cheers

This is not a scientific paper, its a board for conversation. There are major differences between conversation(what we do here) and the rules for scientific writing. I get the feeling, science needs to have more conversations. I would expect that educated people would understand the difference between a internet forum and a scientific paper. I would also expect those same people understood the differences between a commerical magazine and scientific pulications, but sadly that has also fallen by the wayside. Its sad when authors cite commerical mags and expect to be taken seriously. Cheers

I think I remember past statements about your caring little for the topic at hand. That's fine. I don't care that you don't care. I was only musing, you know, in the spirit of the internet forum (vs. formal paper).

If I cared past musing, I'd be working on it. We'd be talking about that. Some of the questions that interest me, I pay to work on out of pocket. I won't do that for something that doesn't get the ole rocks off, so I wouldn't expect anyone else to, either.

But, I'd assume there's some DNA guy out there who'd be into working through your animals. Judging from keeper/scientist exchanges on this forum, it could be like a monitor biology project Odd Couple-style?

Over the years its been very amusing about a total lack of interest.

Both Dennis King and Dr. Ube Krebbs came here. Both were paid to give talks nearby. Both could not believe that no one from the local universities were not doing something here.

Daniel Bennett has been here several times and saw his first nestings(mertens) and lots of interesting events that made his brain hurt. Things like monitors forming eggs in one day. He had been taught it took months over winter and such.

What I have and had, is a monitor data creating machine. I built a facility that allows monitors to do stuff. All I do is run around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to keep up. It really doesn't matter if I am dumb or smart or an idiot or have an attitude, the machine keeps going. Too bad science was not interested.

Early on, I invited all academics to come and see, now I could care less, its really not my lose, I enjoy my monitors just the same. Truth is, local biologists are busy with local herps and rightfully so. Varanid biologists, hmmmmm they missed the boat. Cheers

That's really bizarre, and I don't get it, since for some questions, nothing's more practical than working with someone else's captive critters.

I do have to wonder whether the machismo dominance that drives many generic monitor "keepers" also drives many biologists that study them (since I don't know any monitor biologists); I guess if many monitor biologists are the type who need to have more answers than questions you'd get the lack of interest you've seen. But, for now I can only wonder.

As you may already know, they have called me names, made a point to put me down, tell me how little I know about monitors, etc etc. YET refuse to look. hahahahahahahahahahaha Science at its best. Yes, this appears as evidence of jealousy. Consider, in the area of reproduction, we had more events then all the people they know or read about. All put together and multiplied by a small number. hahahahahahahaha true.

During those wars, I simply called them suedo science or Mr. Science, as they believed they were the difinition of all things varanid. Trouble was, my monitors, and wild monitors I saw, disagreed with them. Again, they could only think to yell at the messenger.

I was taught(falsely I guess) that science was to ask questions and recieve repeatable results. Science was to investigate. I was also taught not to believe in me, but listen to results. Hmmmmmmmm they must have missed that day in school. If i did something that caused repeatable results, they should question what I did, not call me names. More evidence of what your thinking.

I think the problem is about believing, most of these folks believe in eachother. As they actually have little to no experience with the subject, but do have experience with literature(but admit there is little on this subject) So I call it Author worship. If I reported something contrary or different from what a author wrote, they treated it as an attack on the author. Not an concern on the subject or a revelation(something revealed) but merely an attack on the author. Again I was taught(poorly I guess) Information is not an attack, its an addition to. Cheers and happy holidays

I believe I will still practice using males if I hope to produce a certain species. Cheers

Frank, with all do respect, I don't think you need to practice. While practice makes perfect you are pretty good at getting it done!

Happy Holidays and all the best.
-----
AMAZON REPTILE CENTER

NAMED BEST REPTILE STORE IN LOS ANGELES

My husbandry is far from perfect, so I still need practice.

I guess no matter how much you have done and understand, working with living animals is indeed always practice. As you can always screw it up. Cheers

>>Have you ever kept a animal totally alone and have it lay any fertile eggs? The Komodo story says that the Dragon was living with its sister?
>>Thanks
>>Todd Thompson

Not a lizard but I do have a hatchling eastern kingsnake that hatched this summer from a female who was not mated to a male. I know for a fact that this female hasn't been put with a male for at least 7 years (the time we've had her - 8 years come spring) if not actually longer. The snake was part of a confiscations from a small time hobby breeder and no records were passed on so I don't know if the breeder had mated her or not in prior years.

The female laid a clutch in May. 6 of the 10 eggs looked like normal fertile eggs, the other 4 slugs. part way through the incubation process eggs started going bad one by one until finally I was down to one egg. I didn't think it would make it either, but she finally hatched in July.

.

.
-----
_____

PHWyvern

I'm blown away about this. While I've heard vague references over the years, I had no idea monitors were really capable of this. And now I really feel like a loser, as I can't even knock up my broad with TWO males!

Thanks for all the pics Mike. Your spicing this place up. Thanks. And it may be because you do not have a female. From that pic above, I don't see a girl, just a bunch of boys. Also, if you think about it. A non functioning female is not a female either. Or a she/he. I know you understand what it takes to get eggs, once your at that level, then I would question the ability of your female. Cheers

Or was that just me? And for the note, I had no clue about parthenogenesis in Varanids.. the idea of it in such a physically large animal is extremely interesting.. and to be silly about it, Scary

Thanks again for the info Frank.
-----
2.0 Beardie
1.1 Common Boa
1.1 Ackies
0.1 Giant BW Tegu
Thousands of Roaches, T's, and Scorps.
R.I.P. My Beautiful Savannah Monitor.. and my prized Leopard Geckos..