I live in the Omaha, Nebraska area and recieve the Omaha Zoo newsletter, thought this might be of some interest someone.
"Snakes by Artificial Insemination
Five corn snakes produced through artificial insemination (A.I.) were hatched at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo on July 16, 2005 – a first in the world! The 5” brown, orange and white patterned hatchlings are on exhibit in the sunroom of the Zoo’s Desert Dome.
Although this Southeastern U.S. corn snake is not endangered, this conservation project is significant for future projects on endangered snakes like the Jamaican Boa to enhance their genetic diversity. For over ten years the Zoo’s reptile crew and reproductive physiology department have been working together to gather and evaluate semen and develop a cyropreservation technique. The reproductive physiology department helped extract and evaluate the semen; the reptile crew managed the daily care and incubation of snakes and eggs.
For this project, ten corn snakes were artificially inseminated with freshly extracted semen; only one produced eggs 32 days after insemination. From this corn snake’s 19 eggs, only five were fertile and produced hatchlings 55 days later. These results will be used with endangered snake semen through this A.I. process to further the genetic diversity of certain species."
Robert
