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.
Ah, the wonder of it all…
Great! Just what I wanted for Christmas…another religion.
Virgin birth, huh. It sounds like a real time saver for the Komodo.
I think this is a fascinating story, but it does make one consider what perspective to take this in. Since Komodo Dragons don’t have a “religion” that we know of, is this still God laying his hand upon the blessed dragon? Or is it maybe the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard? Or is this just Darwinian evolution showing us that the species will survive?
Whatever the reason, I, for one, welcome our new virgin-born dragon overlords.
I can’t wait to hear David Ikie’s take on this….
THE REPTILLIANS ARE COMING!
THE REPTILLIANS ARE COMING!
Oh wait… he thinks they are here….
BAH!
Who would have guessed the second coming of Jesus would be in dragon form?
“The genetics of self-fertilization in lizards means that all her hatchlings would have to be male.”
I don’t get it.
This is a very informative article explaining it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis
I still don’t get it!
See? This is what happened at Jurassic Park…
Could this be the second coming?
and now…
The only song i know of that
features the word
“Parthenogenesis”
Nemesis by Shreikback
(thank you Google 🙂 )
In a jungle of the senses
Tinkerbell and Jack the ripper
Love has no meaning, not where they come from
But we know pleasure is not that simple
Very little fruit is forbidden
Sometimes we wobble, sometimes we’re strong
But you know evil is an exact science
Being carefully correctly wrong
Chorus
Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home
Big Black Nemesis, parthenogenesis
No one move a muscle as the dead come home
We feel like Greeks, we feel like Romans
Centaurs and monkeys just cluster round us
We drink elixirs that we refine
from the juices of the dying
We are no monsters, we’re moral people
and yet we have the strength to do this
This is the splendour of our achievement
Call in the airstrike with a poison kiss
Chorus
Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home
Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis
No-one move a muscle as the dead come home
How bad it gets, you can’t imagine
the burning wax, the breath of reptiles
god is not mocked, he knows our business
Karma could take us at any moment
Cover him up…..I think we’re finished
You know it’s never been so exotic
but I don’t know, my dreams are visions
We could still end up with the great big fishes
Chorus
Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals
Everybody happy as the dead come home
Big black nemesis, parthenogenesis
No-one move a muscle as the dead come home
Of course this is the Second Coming. The real God is a dinosaur and created dinosaurs in His image. We humans are the scourge and the Antichrist. The real Saviour is about to be reborn to reclaim His planet from the wretched mammals.
This explains my girlfriends pregnancy.
And now I know were the Anti-Christ is coming from.
My girlfriend said this kills the last reason for keeping men around.
Be worried!!!! VERY worried!!!!
🙁
Oh…..I really like the photo Eideard….has that **Holy** look.
I know this man who had a virgin birth. It was really painful and fun at the same time.