Costa Rican Crocodile Achieves First-Ever 'Virgin Birth' in Science's History Books.

Scientists have discovered the first-known instance of a “virgin birth” by a crocodile, which had been living in isolation for about 16 years at a Costa Rican zoo. The female crocodile produced a clutch of 14 eggs within her enclosure in 2018 despite having no contact with males for about 16 years. After three months of incubation, one of the eggs was found to contain a fully formed stillborn baby crocodile. Scientists tested the crocodile fetus’s genetic makeup and found DNA sequences showing it was a result of facultative parthenogenesis (FP), or reproduction without the genetic contribution of males.