Certain whiptail lizard species are all-female species of lizard that produce offspring without the help of male fertilization!
“Unless an animal can recombine the DNA they already have, they will produce an offspring with an identical set of chromosomes, in which any genetic weakness, such as disease susceptibility or physical mutation, would have no chance to be overridden by outside genetic material from a mate.” –Source
Random, but it made me laugh. Read the back story here.
However, these little lizard ladies need not fear. They maintain their genetic variety by starting off with twice the number of chromosomes as their sexually producing lizard relatives. How it works is that the whiptail lizard could strengthen it’s genetic line by specifically not pairing homologous chromosomes, but combining their sister chromosomes instead!
Researchers are still unsure how the lizards end up with double the amount of chromosomes to begin with or how they are able to sister from homologous chromosomes, but they do, and we tip our hats to the one-woman reproductive show that science hasn’t quite figured out yet.
And another interesting fact is how these asexual creatures go about the act of reproduction:
“To do this, they will generally perform a type of pseudocopulation where two females will act out having sex as if one was a male.” –Source
