A 62-Year-Old Python Laid 7 Eggs All By Herself
This single mama didn't even need a male to conceive -- she did it all by herself. At least that's one of a few theories keepers at the Saint Louis Zoo have about their surprising discovery of seven eggs when they came to check on her the morning of July 23, 2020.
361003, she only has a number, not a name, is approximately 62 years-old, well past normal ball python fertility, and on top of that hasn't been anywhere close to a male python in over two decades. She's spent a lot of time, on her own, really. There is one other ball python at the St. Louis zoo, but he's many years her junior and lives in a separate enclosure.
She's lived at the zoo since 1961, when the Saint Louis Zoo adopted her from a private owner when she was about 3 years old — becoming the oldest documented ball python in captivity. She's also not on display, so there are no visits by tourists gawking at her brown and black pattern or approximately 40 inches (1.02 m) in length.
Ball pythons, native to central and western Africa, get their name from a habit of balling up when they feel threatened. are known to reproduce sexually and asexually, which is called facultative parthenogenesis, and can also store sperm for delayed fertilization. The only way to know which route she used is to send samples from the eggs away for genetic testing, which the Zoo is doing, but there are no results yet.
Photo Credit: Chawna Schuette Saint Louis Zoo
Curator of Herpetology Lauren Augustine with they ball python eggs
Photo Credit: Chawna Schuette Saint Louis Zoo.jpg