Endangered Crocodile Has First-Ever Recorded "Virgin Birth"

A female crocodile in a Costa Rican zoo, who had been living alone for 16 years, laid eggs that resulted in a stillborn crocodile. Researchers discovered that the baby crocodile was a parthenogen, a form of asexual reproduction in which an embryo develops from an unfertilized egg cell. This is the first time it’s been found in crocodiles, and it is likely that dinosaurs and pterosaurs also produced offspring via parthenogen. The discovery and analysis make it very likely that parthenogenesis occurred in the archosaurs group of vertebrates.