"Parthenogenesis" is asexual reproduction... 
I had an interesting situation occur and I'd like to share the story with fellow forum members. Here's the story:
I have female ball python, who is currently 17 years old. I've had her in my possession, as a pet snake, since she was a tiny hatchling. She has always been housed by herself and I have NEVER had another ball python and she has never been in contact with another one.
When she was 11 years old, I discovered a clutch of eggs in her enclosure. They were in her hide box on the warmer end, and they looked as though she had been incubating them. Unfortunately, since I had no idea that she might lay any eggs and was not keeping a close eye on her, I found them after I noticed a peculiar smell coming from her cage, and the eggs had either died (if they were indeed fertile!) or were infertile to begin with. There were about a dozen eggs in there. I didn't think at the time to get any photos 
At the time, my reptile resources were very limited and I did not inquire further about the incident. I just figured that if birds could lay eggs spontaneously, so could reptiles. However, I recently have been bringing up the subject with a few reptile breeders, etc, and no one had ever heard of a ball python doing this.
My question to you is this: Have you ever had this happen or heard of this happening? Do you think that if I had caught the eggs in time and moved them to an appropriate environment that there might be babies?
Just an interesting topic to bring forward, and I'd love to hear your view points!
Heather
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Parthenogenesis in Ball Pythons?
Replies (4)
this happened to someone in this forum about 2 years ago, I dont rememeber who though. His female was also older like 12-13 something like that maybe even older.
There have been a few cases posted and discussed throughout the years - I believe there have also been babies born in at least one case that I know of but no one has been able to determine if any were for a fact parthenogenesis.
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Tosha
Other reptiles will lay infertile clutches, so it makes sense that snakes will. I have a gecko who has done so in the past. A friend had it happen with his Iguana. The eggs were infertile in each case.
Here is an interesting new article about parthenogenesis in Komodo Dragons!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070124/ap_on_sc/britain_virgin_birth
