Hi,
Have you retained both of the neonates frozen? I would be interested in having these if you are willing to send them along with the shed from the mother.
We may still be able to put together a publication from this if it proved to be parthenogenesis. The offspring should not be female however. They should be male. Parthenogens in the higher snakes are often missexed as female due to genital deformities.
Warren

Really? I thought that parthenogenic offspring were all identical to the mother, ie female?

No, that is a common misconception. Only in the Pythonidae have parthenogens been found to be clones of the mother. In the Boidae they are female but half clones, and in the Caenophideans (contains pitvipers, colubrids, etc) they are male and half clones.

Warren

Wow, without asking for a genetics treatise, I'd be fascinated to know how THAT works - don't reptiles use a Y chromosome to make a male?

Warren, I have one frozen baby, the other one, had died early in the day after I had left that day, and when I came in that next evening, the body was pretty bloated, and pretty nasty unfortunately. BUT, I do however have all the "slugs" frozen from when the mother gave birth to them... I havent had a shed from the mother in quite some time, so maybe she will soon. Would we be able to determine anything by using one frozen body, some of the frozen "slugs", and then a shed piece from the mother?? Let me know if there is anything we can do with these combinations to go further with learning more about this scenario. Thank you for all your continued help once again.

Helenthereef: snakes fo not have X and Y sex chromosomes. Instead, they have Z and W. Unlike mammals were males are the heterogametic sex (I.e. XY) in snakes females are heterogametic with ZW sex chromosomes. Males are ZZ. As a result true clonal females can only result from pre-meiotic doubling of chromosomes or apomoxis. This is known only from one case in Burmese pythons. I have produced the first and only papers of parthenogenesis in boas (Boa constrictor and Colombian rainbows). These produced females that have 2 W sex chromosomes as a result of one set if the females chromosomes being replicated, therefore resulting in a half clone of the mother. In the Caenophidians the males result from a doubling of one set of chromosomes with the Z chromosome duplicated. Why these produced makes and not females is unknown but likely a result of size variation in the sex chromosomes in the advanced snakes while Boidae and Pythonids have similar sized sex chromosomes.
Warren

Warren: Thanks for the very clear and concise reply, it's fascinating. Are you willing to send the papers? I'll pm you.

Hi,
Sorry for the very late response. The slugs are useless as they are only going to contain the mothers maternal genetic material unless they contain an embryo that died early on in gestation.
I could use the frozen embryo and a partial shed from the mother still. From that we can determine if that offspring was a parthenogen. All you need to do is fedex or ups it to me overnight frozen and with a few cool packs to keep it frozen. I can then sex visually through dissection, extract DNA from the offspring and mother, and determine parentage. Let me know if this interests you. You have my email which is the best way to contact me.

Helen, you can find my publication at my current departmental website -
http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/booth

As of August 15th 2012 I will be moving to the University of Tulsa to start a tenure track faculty position and establish my own lab. You will be able to find my new lab website through a simple Google search then, or at the University of Tulsa Biological Sciences website.

Warren

Thanks!

So? What happened?