This has already been posted to the aquarium's thread, but it's really neat! For only the second time ever recorded, a green anaconda has reproduced on her own. The two surviving babies are complete clones of herself. The babies were first spotted in January, but the Aquarium waited for testing results before announcing. All of the Aquarium's anacondas are female, which was re-confirmed, and the mother had never been exposed to a male. According to the article there's several different types of parthenogenesis, some of which don't produce exact clones, but these ones are. Several other babies were stillborn, which apparently is common with parthenogenesis. They're currently being kept off exhibit so they can be frequently handled and grow up to be nice friendly snakes. It has to suck a little to be an aquarium/zoo that does everything to keep from ending up with more animals that are going to end up being ~20ft long, but you still end up with more anyway A mystery at the New England Aquarium: How did 2 baby anacondas arrive in an all-female exhibit?
