California Condors Can Have 'Virgin Births'
November 12, 2021
(AP): Endangered California condors can have “’virgin births,” according to a study released Thursday (10/28/21). Researchers with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance said genetic testing confirmed that two male chicks hatched in 2001 and 2009 from unfertilized eggs were related to their mothers. Neither was related to a male.
The study was published Thursday in the the Journal of Heredity. It’s 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.
“These findings now raise questions about whether this might occur undetected in other species,” said Oliver Ryder, the study’s co-author and director of conservation genetics for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.
But in birds, it usually only occurs when females don’t 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.
Story originally published by The Journal of Heredity. Reported by AP and picked up by Huffington Post. Cover image is close up portrait of California Condor. Shutterstock.
Watch Post Commentary: So a virgin birth is not a scientific impossibility after all. Of course, we Christians already knew that, but we're glad to see that those who "trust the science" are starting to catch on.
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God."
-Luke 1:26:35
Many people don't realize that faith and science haven't always been at odds. It wasn't until the modern era that mankind began to view them as distinctly separate pursuits. Perhaps we would all do well to recognize one does not have to be mutually exclusive from the other.
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