The Amazon rain forest exhibit of the New England Aquarium is the home of 10 ft, 30 lb, Anna Anaconda.
To everyone’s surprise Anna gave birth to three live babies and about a dozen stillborn.
The surprise is because 8 year old Anna has never met a Manaconda.
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Anna’s female roommates were closely examined to re-confirm their biological sex. Staffers ruled out “delayed embryo implantation,” because Anna’s life history was well documented. She had been born at a certified reptile organization and brought to the New England Aquarium as a very young snake, all with no exposure to males.
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Was it magic? Divine intervention? A secret, late-night reptile tryst?
Of course not, the biologists knew. This was simply the wonders of science.
The staffers immediately suspected a rare reproductive strategy called parthenogenesis, which means that a female organism can self-impregnate.
The phenomenon is far more common in plants and insects, but it has been documented in some lizard, shark, bird and snake species. Just once before, at a zoo in the United Kingdom in 2014, had scientists documented a parthenogenesis case in green anaconda whose young were born alive.
"Genetically, it’s a vulnerable process,” aquarium spokesman Tony LaCasse said. “It’s among that tagline, life will find a way. It’s a completely unique and amazing reproductive strategy, but it has a low viability compared to sexual reproduction.”
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“Aquarium veterinarians sent off tissue samples for analysis,” the news release said. “Many weeks later, the results acknowledged what most Aquarium staff had suspected.”
Anna’s DNA was all they found. And her two living babies — a third died 48 hours after birth — appeared to be her genetic copies.
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Don't waste your breath trying to convince me they are not sneaky, slimey, agents of Beelzebub. I know better.
