Behold, the virgin birth (and yes, it's a son)

Independent Online Edition > This Britain

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 21 December 2006

The world's largest lizard has astonished biologists by being able to produce offspring by an "immaculate" conception without the help of a male.

Two captive female Komodo dragons have had virgin births by a process called parthenogenesis, when an unfertilised egg develops into a normal embryo without being fertilised by a sperm.

This is new to scientists - they didn't know Komodos reproduced parthenogenetically. Genetically, though, reptiles are the opposite of humans and other mammals in that the variant chromosome is male, so when a female lizard has a baby without sex, the offspring is always male. In mammals, the offspring would be female.