Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This site could be of value in discovering parthenogenesis in hognose. A good indicator is viable eggs without copulation. Of course sperm retention is the first suspect. Next would be parthenogenesis.
When morph breeding, there is a easy casual indicator. When breeding a normal to a co-dom or het to recessive. normally visuals appear. If a second clutch without copulation occurs and all the neonates are normal. I would suspect parthenogenesis. Or the next years clutch without copulation.
This is fairly common in colubrids. If your interested, google up Gordon W Schuett Theres a list of publications of sperm retention and parthenogenesis.
What is interesting to me is, How and why is parthenogenesis expressed. I do not know why it occurs and at other times, non-copulation produces infertiles. If they have the ability and its proven they do(colubrids/crots) infertiles would seem to be a waste of energy.
in my case, I discovered parthenogenesis in kingsnakes in the seventies, by pattern breeding. I hatched and raised "normal" patterned females and only bred them to other morphs. When I ceased breeding them, they continued to produce viable eggs. The difference was, they only produced their "normal" pattern and did not express any males of other morphs they had copulated with. This occurred with a number of females, I would think that opportunity is here with hogs.

Personally, i feel most claims of parthenogenesis are indeed sperm retention. Also, when it comes to morphs, breeding het to het, het to visual, and breeding a codom to a normal can and will produce all normals. Parthenogenesis is not to blame. It is the odds on each individual egg in the clutch.

Hi Gregg, that's the problem, people, believe this and that, no offense. I said, it can be an indication of parthenogenesis.
Gordon Shuett, genetically tests for any one of several types of parthenogenesis. Dna test.
He has Proven many many cases of parthenogenesis, of many species, all of which were thought to be sperm retention.
I have no idea if hognose have been recorded to do so. That's why I thought it of interest to some here, or again not.
The first indicator is successfully reproducing without copulation.
I guess its of no interest, unless your holding back normals thinking they are gene carriers. Other then that, its something of interest. I could ask him I guess.

It is very interesting. I just hate to see claims of parthenogenesis without evidence. I cant tell you how many times i have seen someonr say that their female was never with a male only to find out that most times it was a female that was bought from another person or it was wild caught. That is when the claims become suspect. I think too many are quick to make the claim.

Other than that, it is a topic that interests me a lot when the claims are legit.

Even with DNA testing, it can only be ruled as probable parthenogenesis. Even those test do not give a definative answer. Also, i see no problem with believing something as long as one is prepared to change his or her view when evidence proves their belief to be wrong.

I think they not only can determine parthenogenesis, but identify several types. I least that's what he told me.

I think this can be done with a possible hermaphrodite. Also all the babies should be female. This has been suspected in boas before. No breeding ever and a litter was born. All the babies were female which is odd to me.

This will probably go unseen but...

Gordon Schuett has been a co-author of mine for a few years now and we have written a number of papers on parthenogenesis, and continue to. In my lab I run all of the DNA tests. While I agree with Greg that they may be seen only as "probable", when you look at the probabilities it is very clear that it is actual. For example, look at my 2011 paper on Parthenogenesis in Boa constrictor. If I recall correctly, the probability of it being sexual reproduction was somewhere in the region of 1 x 10-56. That is essentially improbable. All other cases we have documented - Colombian Rainbow boas, Several cases in Copperheads, Cottonmouths, Gartersnakes, Ball pythons and Reticulated pythons, and new cases we have coming out soon - Several species of rattlesnake, several other species of Thamnophis, Bothrops spp, Atheris species, and several Varanus species, have probabilities that rank them impossible of being sperm retention. Indeed, we set out guidelines for identifying parthenogenesis and distinguishing it from sperm storage based on duration, sex of offspring, and viability of offspring, as we have also documented the longest genetically confirmed case of parthenogenesis in vertebrates - 5.5 years in an Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake. Using genetic markers we can identify the likely mode of parthenogenesis, and differentiate it from sperm storage also. You can check out my papers at www.booth-lab.org. I will be posting many new papers on parthenogenesis in snakes in the coming months and years. Some that make us question the mechanism of sex determination in snakes.

Thanks,
Warren
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Dr. Warren Booth

USARK - Director

Interesting read.....

www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/female-anaconda-safari-park-has-virgin-birth

I without question understand how you get gun shy, but there was no claim. It was simply a link(google Gordon) and theres a list of his papers on parthenogenesis and sperm retention.
Folks can think in some amazing ways. There an article in Reptiles where a lady raised up a female iggie, without ever having contact with a male. They said it must be sperm retention from when it was a neonate. It must have mated with other hatchling iggies. Which is fairly odd as their sexual organs are not mature at hatchling size.