Endangered California condors can have “virgin births,” a study released on Thursday showed.
Researchers at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance said that genetic testing confirmed that two male chicks that hatched in 2001 and 2009 from unfertilized eggs were related to their mothers. Neither was related to a male.
The study, published in the Journal of Heredity, is the first report of asexual reproduction in California condors, although parthenogenesis can occur in other species ranging from sharks to honey bees to Komodo dragons.
Photo: AFP
However, in birds, it usually only occurs when females do not have access to males.
In this case, each mother condor had previously bred with males, producing 34 chicks, and each was housed with a fertile male at the time they produced the eggs through parthenogenesis.
The researchers said they believe it is the first case of asexual reproduction in any avian species where the female had access to a mate.
“These findings now raise questions about whether this might occur undetected in other species,” said Wildlife Alliance conservation genetics director Oliver Ryder, who coauthored the study.
The non-profit alliance has been involved in a California condor breeding program that helped bring the giant vultures back from near-extinction.
With 3m wingspans, California condors are the largest flying birds in North America. They once ranged throughout the west coast, but only 22 survived in the 1980s when the US government captured them and placed them in zoos for captive breeding. About 160 were bred in San Diego.
There are now more than 500 California condors, including more than 300 that have been released into the wild in California, Arizona, Utah and Mexico.
California condors can live up to 60 years, but the two chicks described in the study were sickly. One was less than two years old when it died, while the other lived less than eight years.
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