For four years, the Reptile Discovery Center’s Asian water dragon female lived alone. Then, while examining eggs as part of a study, animal keepers made a shocking discovery—one was fertile! How could a female lay a fertile egg without a mate? They turned to the Smithsonian Conservation Biology...
Life found a way at Smithsonian’s National Zoo, where a female Asian water dragon at the Reptile Discovery Center underwent facultative parthenogenesis—that is, she reproduced and contributed a healthy, thriving offspring to her species despite never breeding with a male or receiving genetic...
