19-Year-Old Lizard Gives Virgin Birth to Five Babies

You know these two, Kagan and Jerry. It's Wolf's World. We are going to see Pinky, a lizard I used to own. Something very special happened with her. Kind of miraculous, we'll call it for sure. Holy Mary, mother of God. Virgin birth. Parthogenesis discussed today. What are we doing, Pinky? Oh my god. There she is. Holy smokes, guys. This is so cool. May I? Absolutely. A look at her. She's kind of got some girth. What's going on? Is she has definitely gotten bigger. Also, she's recovering from laying a clutch of eggs recently. And you're

going to notice her enclosure is a little bit different than everybody around us. That be is because Pinky is 19 years old. Wow. Just like Slinky. She's an old lady. So, we had to make some adjustments for her in her old age. But, she's doing great. She's still cycling and laying eggs like crazy. In fact, that is one of the miracle things about Pinky is that she produced five parth babies recently. No way. This is so exciting, guys. That's why I'm up here. I wanted to see this. Um, very incredible. Parthogenesis is virgin birth in animals or any animal actually.

It happens a lot with monitors, lizards, some snakes, and even in crocodilians from time to time. Now, why do you think parthogenesis is a cool adaptation for these animals? Do you have any idea? Absolutely. So, these animals are naturally designed for if they swim to an island or by themselves or if they're in an area where they don't have another gender of their species, the females can actually reproduce. She can make a male for herself, make her own boyfriend, and they can keep that population going and they can keep producing this species. Yeah,

that's really, really cool. And that's exactly what I was waiting to hear from. It was a trick question. And obviously, is incredible. And just like Kagan said, if you're an animal that has a wide range and you need to colonize new places, well, that is a really handy trick. So, absolutely. Here's what's crazy, though, and maybe you know this better than I do. I don't know much about um the genetics of parthogenesis, but when they're not clones, are they? So, that's kind of a bit of a piece of the discussion is the babies. We're going to see them in just a

little bit. None of them came out exactly like her pattern. In fact, all of them are a little bit different and unique in their own way. They all have a little bit of different color, different size oceli, all that good stuff. Now, it should be a mostly replication of the mom, but I think there's some little ingredients that are different in Yeah. And you know, we know reptiles genetically are just different where you know, they aren't as sensitive to um inbreeding as a mammal. But, you know, uh what's interesting though is they do want some genetic diversity,

especially if they're on these islands. But then I was thinking, and this is just my, you know, my guessing. All right, Jerry. I was just kind of thinking like, well, is this how new species are created? In other words, you got a monitor lizard. It swims to an island. It's becomes or maybe it's blown to an island from some kind of storm. It's an isolated island. That island, it reproduces in a few years. It's got a few other breedable animals. They all start reproducing and breeding together. Now, you have a locality. And then after maybe thousands of years, do you

have a new species? Because genetically they're isolated. They're a new animal. They're going to evolve to be smaller or larger, maybe a different coloration, facial structure because of what they're hunting. Um they're going to evolve to be different. So I believe that the genetic diversity is less important in these at least water monitors because they are set up to do this. Yeah, most other animals that produce parthogenically produce females, whereas the water monitors produce males for this one very specific reason. And if they're designed that way, yeah, what an amazing then it's

obviously not a problem. Yep. Yeah. What an incredible trait. Now, you guys know that I visited Reptalandia, my friend Quztel's place down in uh just north of San Antonio. But before he was in San Antonio, he was actually in Costa Rica and he had a um he had a parthogenic birth of a Komodo dragon, which again that's cool, you know, insular species and going back maybe a million years when they first colonized or even I don't know how long they've been on Komodo, but it's got to be minimum since the last ice age, right? So maybe 40, 50, 100,000 years ago. um these animals, you know,

have gone there and they've become the species they are. The other interesting thing about these um insula species of monitors is they tend to have island gigantism. The monitors tend to be bigger like your Komodo dragon or your galop reptiles I should say tend to grow larger like your alddabra tortoises, your goalpost tortoises because they're cold-blooded. They don't require as much resources as a warm-blooded animal, which is why you'll have pygmy hippos or pygmy rhinos. You get these smaller warm-blooded animals and larger uh coldblooded animals, which is pretty interesting.

Slinky girl, it's been so long, girl. I love you. It's so nice to see you. This is so cool, guys. Um I love what you've done to her place. As you mentioned, you know, she is an old gal just like Slinky, but she's not having the same mobility problems. Um, you're not noticing like how Slinky's been walking like, "Oh, it's a little stiff. It takes a little bit more for him to get going." A little bit of that, but she's also not moving the body weight around. You know, small dogs don't have as many hip problems as large dogs. Gotcha. Okay, that makes sense.

Interesting. Speaking of hips, that was one of the your comment right away. You said that her she had good body weight on her and she had just laid a clutch of eggs. And when they lay a clutch of eggs, we emphasize getting almost unlimited calories to the females. Actually, pre-llaying, okay? 30 days to laying and maybe even the 30 days after. Yeah. To recoup because losing all that body weight, getting down to almost skeletal, you know, they burn through all their fat can't be good for them. It's got to be hard on their body. And I think that's why at such an older age for

a monitor, she is still so healthy and still producing large clutches of eggs. Yeah. Um, also all that being said, she's she still doesn't like males over here. She we've never had other than a twominute introduction um that is so funny any piece with a male. Yeah. Well, you remember when I put her in with Slinky in the enclosure you helped me build? Um, she just was up in the corner. She was up in way corner and there was no connection uh between them. So, it's just it's so interesting. And she's got that little crooked smile. So incredible. Twisted face.

Pinky. Yep. That's Pinky. All right. Very cool. Absolutely incredible that she produced five parth babies this turn around. The previous clutch, she produced one parth baby that unfortunately did not make it. And year to date, we have actually made 17 partho water monitors, which is crazy. Now, in most of these cases, you might have a female lay a clutch of 14 eggs or so, and you might see one or two babies out of that. So, the fact you're lucky, maybe if you're lucky. Exactly. It's not, you know, if she makes a partho, it's typically only going to

be a very small number, which is why that number of five is so miraculous. But on top of that, there's something even crazier about those babies. Well, let's go check out those babies right now, and you can get into it. I think that's going to be really exciting. We'll leave you to your eggs, young lady. Or should I say, old lady, you're still good looking. Good to see you again, Pinks. All right, let's go check out the kids. All right, let's get them out in the sun. Actually see those patterns. That would be fantastic. Allow me here. Let me help you out. This is so cool.

So, you guys have these little tubs set up to kind of get some natural sunlight for all these uh baby monitors. What better way to desensitize these are pthogenic baby slinkies. Uh excuse me, pinkies. Holy smokes. I know. When I named her Pinky, it I have Inky, Pinky, Slinky, Stinky will be coming down the road, I'm sure. So, right off the bat, let's pull up this one. And let's pull up. Let's see. Come here, monkey. This one. Brett, too. Tiny little patterns. Much bigger patterns. A little more orange, a little more yellow, and they're just different. So,

they're not exact replicas of the mom. Yeah, that is insane, guys. And uh you did also have some photos of their faces, and there's different looks on their faces as well. Exactly. So that's one of the big things is okay, we were talking about earlier, parthogenic water monitors come out male. And one big determining factor when we try and sex monitors as this young age, it's just our best approximation, but we typically go by face shape. So we're looking at size of the nostrils, the eye ridge, the lower jaw, the view from above, what that facial shape looks like. And we noticed

when looking at these, we were like, "Wow, there's some really slender, feminine looking faces in these animals that are supposed to be without a doubt male." So very, very unique. I mean, just look at that top one. Yeah. Holy smokes. Compared to that bottom one, just a very different face shape. Different little faces. May I grab? So, some other monitor breeders have said um in the indicus complex. Well, no. Well, well, firstly I was going to say that it could be to a slight genetic mutation. Yeah. From parththogenesis could be leading to that and that's possible. Um

that one has bumps on it. Is the only one that has something weird going on. You see the little bumps on it. So, gotcha. Don't worry. Sorry. Don't put that in. They've actually come off. It's down to one, but it had like four bumps on it and they were actually sloing off. Huh. We don't know what it was, but that's the only one that has something wrong with it. But that is a good sign. Look how Yeah, he wants to stay with you. I know. That's so weird. Like, usually babies are completely freaked out. What do you This is her. This is you, the lizard lady.

Kagan's influence on the animals. She makes so calm and choose people. Wow, that's really amazing, Kagan. Um, they say, you know, a dog looks like its owner. Well, maybe lizards just take on the uh not necessarily the appearance. I'm not saying you look like a lizard. The calm characteristics. Exactly. I would hesitate to call you a lizard lady. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I try. Although for us, we'd probably not take offense to that. Oh, yeah. I don't mind looking like a lizard. That's how the FedEx people know me. Oh, really? A lizard lady. That is so cool.

This guy just will not come off. He doesn't want to leave. Look. Come on. Go swimming. There you go. Oh, that is so cool. Look at these guys. I cannot believe what you guys have been able to accomplish here. So, Kenan, we would love for you to end up with one of these babies. Oh, no way, dude. That would be amazing. You gifted us Pinky. Um, and we absolutely love her and uh we would love you to be able to continue her bloodline at your property. I don't know if you want to call it bloodline, but her lineage. She's an absolutely special animal and uh only condition is we are going to want to do genetic testing down the

line with these animals because we want you to end up with one that looks more malike that has more male features. I'd love that. And we're going to actually keep track of where they all go. And we're going to do genetic testing on the entire group and try to prove out that there's the possibility that there are females in this group. Cuz how crazy would that be to show that there's something different scientifically with these animals that is not necessarily known to be factual for this species? That would be a huge discovery and you guys would have like

a amazing that you guys, you know, it's testament to how hobbies and hobbyists can actually do real good work driving the knowledge forward with these animals because we never would have known about this stuff. There are no absolutes in the animal game. Absolutely. Things are constantly changing and surprising you. Um and we could be 100% wrong. It could be who cares? little mutations in in parthogenesis that could create the different facial shapes. It could absolutely be that. And a lot of other people said there's no way five babies are parthogenic that it's sperm retention.

But after talking to you, it's probably been over 15 years since she had been paired with the male successfully. Well, hold on a second, though. Oh, well, let's just say we find out the only other male it could be is one you put in with her. But no, she it was a then it's Slinky. These could potentially be baby Slinkies. Holy crap. She's She's laid four clutches easily a year. It would be a It would be Yeah, but it would be like incredible sperm retention. You know what I mean? Like, is that possible? Yeah. You know, I know tortoises can keep sperm for up to

a year, but oh, I don't know. But either way, um, what's going on here is special. And yeah, I'm 100% on board. In fact, I mean, you know, hold on to these animals till they get big enough that you can get the dimesiz shed you need. I personally knowing that Slinky is getting older and he's not going to reproduce, you know, which is sad for me. Having um a pinky baby is the next best thing. And having a male pinky baby uh to continue the education that Slinky has brought and the love of these monitors that Slinkiey's been able to be an ambassador for would be kind

of huge for me. So, yeah, man. I appreciate it. Well, I think you need a larger animal for that enclosure. Get that guy. Yeah, we definitely need a big lizard to fill Slinky's enclosure and it will always be called Slinky's house, even if we have a new lizard in it. So, that's very cool. Now, what were you going to talk to me about? The mangrove monitors. Indicus. Oh, so there's a there's the indicus complex, which includes the mangrove monitors, and they have proven that some of those animals have produced female parthogenically. Wow, that's cool. In Europe. There you go. Well, all right, guys. Now you have seen it all.

We saw the old lady Pinky still giving us new life. That's so amazing, man. Love it. We learned a lot today. Thanks to Kagan and Jerry at Wolves World. Go see their YouTube channel. Please give them a subscription. Give them a follow. They have a beautiful facility and we're going to show you more in the next video here. Uh do me a favor. Go to patreon.com/campkennon. You guys have a Patreon, don't you? Yes, we do. What's going on behind you? All right, they're keeping secrets. I'll talk to you guys later. Look for them on Patreon and uh give me a follow as well on there. See you guys. It's locked onto her finger. Oh, well

that happens. That's no big deal. Into everyone's life, a little bite will fall. See you.