figment-the-boa:

crispysnakes:

From Kool Blood:

Update on Lunesta’s parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction) Hog Island boa litter: A little background for those of you that are new to my page, Luniesta is my 7 1/2 foot Female pure Hog Island Boa (Bci). last year she was exhibiting some bizarre behavior and went off food for over 9 months. she would start to stare at the ceiling of her cage and would puff up her cheeks. I was getting extremely worried and though she had a possible RI or illness. That was not the case! She was actually gravid! However she has never been with any males her entire life. She gave birth last summer to 3 beautiful female babies. Most people, when they think asexual reproduction think of identical clones. These babies are not clones of each other and have their own differences. They all come from lunesta’s DNA but how the recombination of alleles occur create 3 diverse babies. From what I understand In a way they are all half clones. Uncommonly enough parthenogenesis young tend to have some genetic defects due to the double copy of alleles. One of the babies was born with a kink tail, one born with a bulbous eye, and the other was born a runt. I have always and still have to assist feed the bulbous eye baby, I have been treating the eyes with topical ointment medication. so far one of the eyes has cleared up and is showing progress. The Kink tail baby is shown in the last photo and is doing great! she’s currently feeding on rat pups and eats like a beast. Her color has drastically increased.

Read more updates on Kool Blood’s FB page.

I am sharing this for two reasons: parthenogenesis in BCI, and as an example of what bug eye looks like in a baby boa.

I was going to share this when I got back to my computer. Really interesting read.