Giant python has species' first ever 'virgin birth'

Giant python has species' first ever 'virgin birth'
(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Ready your myrrh, folks: A reticulated python named Thelma has given birth to six little miracles of science.

Staff at the Louisville Zoo in Kentucky suspected something was amiss, reports National Geographic, when the 200-pound, 20-foot-long snake produced six female offspring in June 2012, despite not having been in contact with a male counterpart. Now DNA evidence published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society confirms that there wasn't another parent in the mix: it was all Thelma.

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Nico Lauricella

Nico Lauricella was editor-in-chief at TheWeek.com. He was formerly the site's deputy editor and an editor at The Huffington Post.