Possible parthenogenesis in cornsnakes

[Seriva Senkalora]

Hell there,

I'm looking for people who've had something similar and want to share their experiences with me:

I'm a hobbyist cornsnake breeder and got this season an unexpected clutch from a virgin Caramel Cinder female. She was born in summer 2015 and I got her in march 2016. She was kept single and later she shared a vivarium with my Hypo Kastanie Bloodred female in the same age and stayed with her in the same vivarium until now. On 8th of June the Caramel Cinder laid me a clutch of three slugs and four surprisingly well looking eggs. The Hypo Kastanie Bloodred has proven to be a female for sure, because she laid six slugs this season, too. I've put the four good looking eggs from the Caramel Cinder's clutch into my incubator just to see what will happen. A few days later I checked the incubator and saw the eggs being pretty nice. Still white and pearly and so I candled them and three of them do have veins in them. And when I checked them again this week, the three eggs are still doing well. The fourth also looks pretty good, but when candled it is clearly different to the others with a bright yellow color and no veins - so this is definitely unfertilized.

I am really surprised and can't wait to see if the eggs will make it and if they will hatch.

Pictures:
1x Eggs 8th of June
1x Candling 19th of June
2x Candling 3rd of July

Cheers
Seriva

 

[Trimer]

Hi Seriva, we had a definite parthenogenetic experience with one of our Snow corns a couple of years ago. We had a very small Snowcorn female of approx 7 years old. She was always a poor feeder and never made a good size. She was not to be part of our breeding plans, I kept her back and maintained her in complete isolation. in 2016 she laid 7 eggs by surprise, She never looked gravid nor plump. 5 of the eggs looked viable so I incubated them, Meanwhile, our snowcorn passed away. 4 of the eggs survived and hatched giving us all amels. 1 x female and 3 x males. Certain "experts" I spoke to about this event would not believe that our Snow had been in isolation and never been mated. I was told that to be true parthenogenesis all the babies should have been snow and clones of the mother and also all female. I have my records and I know what I know! The four surviving amels are in good health and doing very well all are good feeders.

 

[Seriva Senkalora]

Hello Trimer,
thanks for your reply!

Well, there are in fact different types of possible outcomes in pathenogenesis. They don't need to be all clones of their mother. From females with loads of hets you can get recombination morphs as well. Since in snakes the females are the ones with two different chromosomes (not like humans where the males are XY and the females XX), it is also possible to get males from parthenogenesis.

Unfortunately my eggs didn't hatch. In two of them I found dead embryos which showed clearly that it was parthenogensis from my female.

Best wishes
Seriva

 

[Trimer]

Hello again Seriva,

Many thanks for the information and reply.

It is a fascinating occurrence and I intend to keep the four we have, especially the female to see what she might do eventually if kept isolated for a few years.
Cheers.