Miracle baby: Asian water dragon produces offspring without a mate at National Zoo
Washington Post
Published:
June 7, 2019
Updated:
June 7, 2019 11:23 AM EDT
The Smithsonian's National Zoo is the first to confirm "facultative parthenogenesis" in Asian water dragons, a species of lizard. Officials say a female Asian water dragon, left, hatched August 2016 and is the only surviving offspring of her 12-year-old mother. Skip Brown / The Washington Post
WASHINGTON – It was the lizard version of a miracle baby.
Experts at the National Zoo in Northwest Washington said a female Asian water dragon produced an offspring without a mate.
It’s known as “facultative parthenogenesis,” said scientists at the zoo, meaning that “she reproduced without contribution from a male.”
A paper on the findings was published June 5 in the PLOS One scientific journal. In a Twitter message, the zoo said, “Life found a way at our Reptile Discovery Center!”
It’s quite a tale of how the baby water dragon came to be.
An Asian water dragon is a kind of lizard. Zoo experts said the mama lizard came to the National Zoo in 2006 from the St. Louis zoo when she was 4 months old. Asian water dragons are native to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and southern China.
They have a long tail that is helpful in climbing and balancing themselves. And they use it like a whip to defend against predators, experts said.
At the National Zoo, the plan was not to breed her but for her to be an “animal ambassador,” zoo experts said in a statement. She would be used to teach visitors about biology and lizard behaviour.
Female water dragons, experts said, are known for “laying infertile eggs if they have not bred with a male,” the zoo said, so when she started to produce eggs in 2009, no one thought much of it.
But in 2015, zookeepers wanted to do a study, so they incubated all eggs that were laid by female reptiles that were not bred. After two weeks of incubation, the zookeepers “candled” them, holding each one up to a light to see if there are veins.
There were, and experts said it was a “telltale sign that the eggs were fertile and embryos were developing.”
The first two batches did not survive. But the third batch happened to have what scientists call a “breakthrough,” and a female hatchling came out of her shell on Aug. 24, 2016.
Zookeepers took a DNA swab from inside her cheek and sent it to other scientists for analysis. Another dragon hatched from the same mom in November 2018, but it died from a blockage in its gastrointestinal tract.
After a lot of analysis, scientists figured out that the egg had developed “without assistance from a male,” said Robert Fleischer, head of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation Genomics.
The baby dragon can be seen at the zoo’s Reptile Discovery Center.
http://twitter.com/i/videos/tweet/1136346916495560704
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/news/scie...smithsonians-national-zoos-asian-water-dragon
http://torontosun.com/news/world/mi...uces-offspring-without-a-mate-at-national-zoo
Washington Post
Published:
June 7, 2019
Updated:
June 7, 2019 11:23 AM EDT
The Smithsonian's National Zoo is the first to confirm "facultative parthenogenesis" in Asian water dragons, a species of lizard. Officials say a female Asian water dragon, left, hatched August 2016 and is the only surviving offspring of her 12-year-old mother. Skip Brown / The Washington Post
WASHINGTON – It was the lizard version of a miracle baby.
Experts at the National Zoo in Northwest Washington said a female Asian water dragon produced an offspring without a mate.
It’s known as “facultative parthenogenesis,” said scientists at the zoo, meaning that “she reproduced without contribution from a male.”
A paper on the findings was published June 5 in the PLOS One scientific journal. In a Twitter message, the zoo said, “Life found a way at our Reptile Discovery Center!”
It’s quite a tale of how the baby water dragon came to be.
An Asian water dragon is a kind of lizard. Zoo experts said the mama lizard came to the National Zoo in 2006 from the St. Louis zoo when she was 4 months old. Asian water dragons are native to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and southern China.
They have a long tail that is helpful in climbing and balancing themselves. And they use it like a whip to defend against predators, experts said.
At the National Zoo, the plan was not to breed her but for her to be an “animal ambassador,” zoo experts said in a statement. She would be used to teach visitors about biology and lizard behaviour.
Female water dragons, experts said, are known for “laying infertile eggs if they have not bred with a male,” the zoo said, so when she started to produce eggs in 2009, no one thought much of it.
But in 2015, zookeepers wanted to do a study, so they incubated all eggs that were laid by female reptiles that were not bred. After two weeks of incubation, the zookeepers “candled” them, holding each one up to a light to see if there are veins.
There were, and experts said it was a “telltale sign that the eggs were fertile and embryos were developing.”
The first two batches did not survive. But the third batch happened to have what scientists call a “breakthrough,” and a female hatchling came out of her shell on Aug. 24, 2016.
Zookeepers took a DNA swab from inside her cheek and sent it to other scientists for analysis. Another dragon hatched from the same mom in November 2018, but it died from a blockage in its gastrointestinal tract.
After a lot of analysis, scientists figured out that the egg had developed “without assistance from a male,” said Robert Fleischer, head of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute’s Center for Conservation Genomics.
The baby dragon can be seen at the zoo’s Reptile Discovery Center.
http://twitter.com/i/videos/tweet/1136346916495560704
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/news/scie...smithsonians-national-zoos-asian-water-dragon
http://torontosun.com/news/world/mi...uces-offspring-without-a-mate-at-national-zoo
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