Scientists have identified the first known case of a crocodile becoming pregnant and producing a fetus genetically identical to itself.
The findings were published in Biology Letters, a journal published by the Royal Society, on Wednesday, June 7, by a team led by Virginia Tech evolutionary biologist Warren Booth.
Scientists found that the crocodile in gave birth to a fetus that was 99.9% genetically identical. The team, which includes scientists from the Polytechnic Institute of Virginia and the State University in the United States, said the discovery was the “first documented” way of reproducing this very rare species of crocodile.
Over the past two decades, zoologists have increasingly documented the reproductive strategy of facultative parthenogenesis (FP) vertebrates, in which females lay eggs or give birth to children without mating.
Many organisms have been shown to reproduce in this strange way, including birds, reptiles such as lizards and snakes, and some fish. The study, recently published in the journal Biology Letters, documented the first evidence of FP in the American crocodile, Crocodylus acutus.
The latest research is based on the observation of a female crocodile, held in captivity for 16 years in 2018, who laid a clutch of 14 eggs, one of which contained a fully formed but dead fetus.
The rare reproductive strategy of one species of crocodile has particularly intrigued scientists because these organisms lack sex chromosomes and their sex determination is controlled by the temperature at which eggs develop and hatch.
Scientists say this trait may have been inherited from an evolutionary ancestor, so even dinosaurs may have been able to reproduce themselves.
“This evidence offers a tantalizing glimpse into the possible reproductive abilities of extinct archosaurs, relatives of crocodiles, particularly pterosaurs and dinosaurs,” the authors write in the study.
The crocodile that laid the egg was caught when it was two years old and kept away from other crocodiles in Parque Reptilania all its life.
Researcher Warren Booth, who works at Virginia Tech in the United States, and his colleagues analyzed the fetus and found that it was more than 99.9% genetically identical to its mother, confirming that it was birth there was no male intervention.
“Building on previous studies, the data contribute to our understanding of the distribution of FP in vertebrates, particularly since all previous studies have focused on genetically sexed species,” the authors added.
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