Virgin mothers in the natural world

We often think that virginity is an amazing phenomenon, and cannot happen in humans. But for many animals, they can reproduce sexually, but choose to reproduce singularly.

Species of Extatosoma tiaratum rodents are endemic in Australia do not always need to mate with males.(Photo: Alamy).

According to the BBC, this species will mate with males when they find suitable partners, however, they can also reproduce themselves without resorting to males. In a study published in the March 2015 issue of Animal Behavior, scientists investigated the causes of sometimes reproductive children without male help (virginity). The cause is not due to rare or no males - which often happens in monogamous animals. The team thinks that sex will make children lose their energy, so they like to reproduce themselves without males.

Children even beat the male.(Photo: Wikipedia).

First, they emit an anti-aphrodisiac scent to prevent the male from being seduced. If the male persists in attack, he will bend his abdomen, kick his leg into the male."The females that start the reproductive process are no longer attractive to males, so these females continue to have a chance to reproduce monotonously," the team said. However, the male "often wins the war for the right to mate, despite the female resistance". That explains the fact that reproductive properties are rare , even rarely in fully capable species. In such species, "males often compel females to mate".

This python gave birth to 6 healthy offspring without males.(Photo: Kyle Shepherd).

For a long time, monoclinic reproduction has been recorded in some captive snakes. For a long time, scientists thought that children were forced to be virgin because their surroundings had no males. That view changed in 2012, when Warren Booth, a researcher at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, found two wild cobras born by monogamous reproduction.

This is the first case of virginity recorded in wild snakes.(Photo: Kyle Shepherd).

That same year, another group of scientists recorded a virgin in a tiger snake, but this time the snake did not survive. The mother gave birth to a dead snake and four undeveloped eggs. Two years later, this mother snake continued to have a single sex case. We are not sure why the snake died, but through this we understand that this is not the ideal form of reproduction , Mark Jordan, Indiana University in the US, the study's lead author commented.

"These snakes are half-copies of their mother, the supreme hybridity, " Jordan said. "When a virgin happens, there is a lot of risk of death or developmental delay." However, this reproduction is an inherent biological characteristic of the cobra. "It's the way they are used in situations like no males to mate, when populations are declining or moving to new habitats." Jordan's research was published in Reptile magazine in March 2015.

The production of vertebrates in the wild world was discovered for the first time this year.(Photo: RD Grubbs).

Previously, scientists who had never recorded a virgin in the Atlantic small-toothed spider , Pristis pectinata , are now classified as endangered. The scientific community has recorded the phenomenon of sharks in sharks, a species that has a family name for the swordfish, but only sharks are kept in captivity. In nature, it is difficult to know the time of mono reproduction. Scientists know only by DNA testing.

7 healthy young calves have been discovered in this way, the study was published in the journal Current Biology in June 2015.(Photo: Alamy).

Scientists accidentally discovered this when studying the cause of the fish whale population is declining through understanding their genome."At the time, we were looking at how their genomes were mutated , " said co-author Kevin Feldheim, who works at the Natural History Museum in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

The fish whales are healthy and fast, even though they are born through a virgin path. We do not understand why the small stingray chooses a virgin. But that may be a vital strategy when the number of populations is very low."If a male cannot be found, this mechanism could be the last attempt of the female to preserve the breed ," Feldheim said. His team took more than 130 samples of natural small toothed swordfish. They are analyzing their reproductive frequency.

For a long time, virgins are considered a common phenomenon in lizards, since they are forced to do so when the species has only females and no males.

However, it turns out the story is not so simple. A study published in the Reptile magazine in August said that there is a reptile all thought to be, and it turns out that there are males.

Eight Muller male lizards were discovered in 192 adult individuals in 34 different locations in South America. This is the first time scientists have discovered this species has males, although they are very common in Central South America. This shows that maybe some Muller lizards have reproduced sexually. However, scientists believe that Muller 's asexual children strictly adhere to their "no man policy" .

"We hope that asexual children do not cross the barrier, mate with males; but normal children do," said Sergio Marques de Souza, lead author of the study, Sao Paulo University in Brazil. . Evidence of males in Muller may provide new clues to how this species forms asexual reproduction. Muller lizards may have reproduced asexually, or not, for about 4 million years. Previously, scientists thought that Muller lizard was a hybrid of two different species. When two species mate and produce a new species, and the descendants of the new species are all.

However, new findings about males show that the theory may be inaccurate. Mono reproduction can arise naturally due to environmental pressure, Souza said.