Virgin Birth for Komodo Dragon at Chester Zoo

Central to the traditional Christian story of the nativity is the idea of the Virgin Birth. According to the Church in most of its variations, Mary gave birth to Jesus but was a virgin. Matthew 1:18 reads (KJV), “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.” For humans, this must be a miracle, but for komodo dragons, and other reptiles, a virgin birth is merely a creative solution to a reproductive challenge.

As reported in Nature earlier this week, Flora, a komodo dragon who lives in Chester Zoo in England near the Welsh border, is going to have 8 dragonettes (calves? kittens? pups? hatchlings?) without having “known” a male komodo dragon. The zookeepers are extremely confident that there was no contact with a male ever, and in a zoo, one might just notice the coupling of komodo dragons. Still, they were surprised because parthenogenesis, in which an animal is both biological mother and father to the offspring, was unknown among komodo dragons.

An earlier case of parthenogenesis in the species may have occurred in London with a komodo named Sungai. However, she had been with a male two years earlier, and there was some doubt as to whether she could have stored the semen in some way that long. Flora’s case proved parthenogenesis in komodo dragon’s beyond all doubt.

In the wild, this ability could explain how the dragon can spread from one island to another. A single female is all that is necessary. As Reuters quoted Kevin Buley, who is Curator of Reptiles at Chester Zoo, as saying “The genetics of self-fertilization in lizards means that all her hatchlings would have to be male. These would grow up to mate with their own mother and therefore, within one generation, there would potentially be a population able to reproduce normally on the new island.”

Mr. Buley also said, “Nobody in their wildest dreams expected this. But you have a female dragon on her own. She produces a clutch of eggs and those eggs turn out to be fertile. It is nature finding a way. We were blown away when we realized what she’d done. But we certainly won’t be naming any of the hatchlings Jesus.” On reflection, it might be appropriate to use that name. After all, what is more central to the teachings of the man from Nazareth than “finding a way” despite all challenges and difficulties? And what is more miraculous than learning something new?

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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