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The Biggest, Longest, Sexiest, Tallest, Smallest, Shortest, Highest, Lowest, Fastest, Slowest, Rarest, Oldest, Youngest, Happiest, First, Last, Maximum, Minimum, Largest, Oddest...
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See Also
World Sex News |
Birds and mammals are not known to have produced parthenogenetic populations in the wild.
But, oddly enough,
experimenters working with turkeys have had considerable success in producing
parthenogenetic strains. Using
more than 42,000 eggs American scientists were able to increase the number of eggs "which
started to develop"
from 16.7 per cent in 1952 to 41.7 per cent in 1959. This improvement was a result of
selective breeding. Birds
producing a high proportion of eggs with parthenogenetic tendencies were mated from males
descended from
other such birds. Towards the end of the experiment 67 embryos were reared to hatching, a
few survived to
maturity, three produced sperm, and one actually produced off spring. More recently, Patricia
Sarvella of the US
Department of Agriculture reported the birth of four male parthenogenetic chickens, hatched
from 8,532 eggs:
all four reached maturity ("Nature", vol. 243, p.171).