Costa Rican zoo reports virgin alligator birth

A Costa Rican zoo has reported an unusual event, the first ever virgin birth, with a female crocodile giving birth to a fetus that was 99.9 percent genetically identical to her own.

according to BBCIt is reported that this phenomenon has been found in birds, fish and other reptiles, but never in crocodiles.

Scientists point out that this trait may have been inherited from evolutionary ancestors, so dinosaurs may also have been able to reproduce themselves.

In 2018, an 18-year-old American alligator laid an egg at the reptile park. Although it was fully formed, it was stillborn and did not hatch.

The female alligator was captured when she was two years old and had never been kept with other alligators her entire life.

After encountering the virgin birth, the park’s research team contacted a team at Virginia Tech in the United States, which specializes in virgin births, also known as parthenogenesis.

After analysis, they also confirmed that the newborn had no father.

The researchers wrote in the Journal of the Royal Society Biology LettersVirgin births may be more common among crocodiles, but have gone unnoticed until now because people hadn’t looked for such examples.

“It is not uncommon for captive reptiles to lay eggs, but given the time spent isolated from their mates, these eggs are often considered non-viable and discarded. Therefore, these findings suggest that eggs should be assessed for their potential viability in the absence of males,” the scientists said.

“Also, given that (virgin birth) can occur in the presence of a potential mate, it may be missed when females reproduce while cohabiting with males.”

It’s not clear why this happens across species, but these phenomena are appearing more and more frequently in the scientific literature, probably because researchers are looking for it.

One theory is that this happens when species with the ability to reproduce parthenogenetically dwindle in numbers and become endangered.

“This new evidence provides tantalizing insights into the reproductive capabilities of crocodilians’ extinct relatives, especially dinosaurs,” the experts wrote.