The Jesus Lizard

[Scriptor Ignotus]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/20/uk.komodo.reut/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Virgin Komodo dragon is expecting

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Flora, a pregnant Komodo dragon living in a British zoo, is expecting eight babies in what scientists said on Wednesday could be a Christmas virgin birth.

Flora has never mated, or even mixed, with a male dragon, and fertilized all the eggs herself, a process culminating in parthenogenesis, or virgin birth. Other lizards do this, but scientists only recently found that Komodo dragons do too.

"Nobody in their wildest dreams expected this. But you have a female dragon on her own. She produces a clutch of eggs and those eggs turn out to be fertile. It is nature finding a way," Kevin Buley of Chester Zoo in England said in an interview.

He said the incubating eggs could hatch around Christmas.

/snip

[itsmesgd]

1. whoops, thought this was a post for the band n/t

Did somebody "check" to make sure that she didn't get knocked up?
And eew who would have that job?

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Yes, they did check. It says so in the article. (n/t)

[whistle]

2. Europe has been famous for their hoaxes in the past

...I would not be at all surprised to hear that this is another one:

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/history/before_1700

[DeSwiss]

3. Its not a hoax, its asexual reproduction....

Take for example the Whiptail Lizard in Arizona:

http://www.nerve.com/Regulars/ScienceOfSex/09-19-00/09-19-00.asp

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/106361403773062669?cookieSet=1&journalCode=posc

Whiptail lizards are an all female species. Each female lizard is born with her eggs "good to go." Scientists that study these lizards refer to them as "parthenogenetic unisexual pseudocopulators."

Nature has shown in a very clear and dramatic way that the male isn't really necessary for the continued survival of a species. And that asexual reproduction is one way humans could have gone. Considering all the wars, hate and mayhem produced by "mankind", maybe that should have been the way for us to go too....

:shrug:

[whistle]

4. Well, give it a whirl...

[happyslug]

7. A few years ago I took a class on medicine for Lawyers.

One of the things that came out was that women with a bad Ovary with a good Fallopian tube, and a good Ovary and a bad Fallopian tube, could still get pregnant. How this happens no one knows, based on present knowledge the bad ovary should NEVER give out a good ova, while the good Ovary should give out good ova but such ova should be stopped by the bad Fallopian tube. Anyway, women in such situation can STILL GET PREGNANT with the fertilized ova getting to her womb. Basically if they is anyway a woman an be made pregnant, a woman's body will find a way to do so.

[Book Lover]

6. Shouldn't that be "The Mary Lizard"? (nm)