The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #68747 Message #2059022
Posted By: Amos
23-May-07 - 10:23 AM
Thread Name: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
Subject: RE: BS: I Read it in the Newspaper
Shark's virgin birth stuns scientists
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 12:01am BST 23/05/2007
Birds do it. Bees do it. Now it seems that sharks are the latest, and largest, creatures that are able to reproduce without having sex, a finding that could have important implications for conserving these endangered fish.
A female hammerhead shark has given birth without the help of a male, after genetic tests revealed that its baby shark had no paternal DNA.
An international team reports that the shark's "virgin birth" was down to an unusual method of reproduction known as "parthenogenesis", where an egg starts to divide without being fertilised.
This is the first scientific report of male free asexual reproduction in sharks.
The study is reported in the journal Biology Letters by a team from the Queen's University Belfast, the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University, Florida and the Henry Doorly Zoo, Nebraska.
Head of the Queen's team, Dr Paulo Prodöhl, said: "The findings were really surprising because as far as anyone knew, all sharks reproduced only sexually by a male and female mating, requiring the embryo to get DNA from both parents for full development, just like in mammals."
Maybe God decided it was time to move on to a more promising candidate species, ya think???