Reptile & Amphibian Forums

anyone read that article on animal planets website a while back about a 30 year old green female that gave birth to 3 neos that were duplicates of herself?icant seem to find the article anymore. it was in south america in rio dejanero somewhere . it was also housed with 3 redtail boas.

I recall a story about a burm a few months back, but not an anaconda. The media is so inconsistant.
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I don't believe in luck. Luck is God covering your a** when you screw up.

Anaconda, without a date in 26 years, mysteriously gives birth

Rafaela is 32-year-old anaconda that weighs 45 kilograms and recently bore three daughters, even though she has not had contact with a male for 26 years.

Biologists where Rafaela has been on display in a vivarium are puzzled as to the paternity of the snakes.

Scientists at the Department of Genetic Research at the National Cancer Institute in Rio de Janeiro have begun taking tissue samples from Rafaela, her babies and the boa constrictors.

The reptiles share the vivarium with Rafaela at the Life Sciences Institute of Brazil in Niteroi to the south of the State of Rio de Janeiro.

Rafaela laid 32 eggs, but only three survived.

They currently measure between 75 and 80 centimetres but full-grown anacondas grow to 10 metres.

They live their lives on the water for as much as 40 years.

Biologist Anibal Gimenez has three theories on Rafaela, who also laid 20 unfertilized eggs.

First, that Rafaela could have bred with one of the boas, an idea Mr Gimenez called "scientifically unlikely" since boas may look similar but are a separate species.

"Being of the same family would be like crossing a man with a monkey," Mr Gimenez said.

A second theory is that Rafaela could have mated before she was captured by the army in 1976 and may have conserved the sperm in a reservoir within her body.

"That hypothesis has already been proven among reptiles like serpents and rattlesnakes but never for such a long time," Mr Gimenez said.

Mr Gimenez said the final possibility, and most probable, is that the anaconda accomplished a rare parthenogenesis - a cellular division that forms an embryo without fertilization.

"Hormonal changes associated with aging can touch off this process, but we have no precedents in this species," Mr Gimenez said.

"Parthenogenesis is frequent among young scorpions and lizards who cannot find a male.

"The anaconda has performed an act of preservation of the species, a sort of self-cloning," he said, who is collecting the data for publication in an academic review.

The anaconda is the largest serpent among Brazilian fauna.

It survives on a diet of fish, birds and may even suffocate mammals.

I never saw that article, but I remember hearing the same type of story, I think it was pertaining to a captive green at the Bronx zoo, though I'm not 100% sure...

Renee