[midnightline]

Alrighty, here goes. A few years ago, I acquired a young sub-adult striped cornsnake. The first clutch of eggs she laid for me only had four eggs go full term (excess moisture caused most to get moldy). They did not hatch, but I slit them and they were definitely stripes. One of them appeared to be an anery, the rest were unmistakably normal stripes.

I sold the male I paired her with as being het for anery and stripe, since the eggs were obvious stripes even though they didn't hatch out. The person who bought the male paired him with an anery stripe and got 100% normals out of a decent-sized clutch.

Okay... I thought that was a little weird, but I did introduce a different male to her early on during the season. I watched them for a few minutes, saw that she was desperately trying to escape him, and removed the male. I thought I had watched them the entire time, but I suppose I could have been distracted and missed them hooking up. So... I paired THAT male with a snow stripe female. The result? 50% motleys, 50% normals. That male wasn't het anery or stripe either!

But if she hadn't been bred before, and neither of the two males she'd been exposed to that first go-round were het anery or stripe (let alone both), where did the three normal stripes and one anery stripe come from? The only explaination I have is that it's parthenogenesis.

I do not believe I mis-identified the contents of the eggs that did not hatch. It was not a vague guess that they were stripes. They were definitely stripes. (No, I don't have pics, it was about four years ago and I didn't think to take them.)

Thoughts? Comments?