Komodo Dragon - Virgin Birth

farooq_siddiqui · Post by **farooq_siddiqui** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 10:38 pm

Interesting story.

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Virgin Komodo dragon is expecting

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Flora, a pregnant Komodo dragon living in a British zoo, is expecting eight babies in what scientists said on Wednesday could be a Christmas virgin birth.

Flora has never mated, or even mixed, with a male dragon, and fertilized all the eggs herself, a process culminating in parthenogenesis, or virgin birth. Other lizards do this, but scientists only recently found that Komodo dragons do too.

"Nobody in their wildest dreams expected this. But you have a female dragon on her own. She produces a clutch of eggs and those eggs turn out to be fertile. It is nature finding a way," Kevin Buley of Chester Zoo in England said in an interview.

He said the incubating eggs could hatch around Christmas.

Parthenogenesis has occurred in other lizard species, but Buley and his team said this was the first time it has been shown in Komodo dragons -- the world's largest lizards.

Scientists at Liverpool University in northern England discovered Flora had had no male help after doing genetic tests on three eggs that collapsed after being put in an incubator.

The tests on the embryos and on Flora, her sister and other dragons confirmed that Komodo dragons can reproduce through self-fertilization.

"Those genetic tests confirmed absolutely that Flora was both the mother and the father of the embryos. It completely blew us away because it [parthenogenesis] has never been seen in such a large species," Buley explained.

A Komodo dragon at London Zoo gave birth earlier this year after being separated from males for more than two years.

Scientists thought she had been able to store sperm from her earlier encounter with a male, but after hearing about Flora's eggs researchers conducted tests which showed her eggs were also produced without male help.

"You have two institutions within a few short months of each other having a previously unheard of event. It is really quite unprecedented," said Buley.

The scientists, reporting the discovery in the science journal Nature, said it could help them understand how reptiles colonize new areas.

A female dragon could, for instance, swim to another island and establish a new colony on her own.

"The genetics of self-fertilization in lizards means that all her hatchlings would have to be male. These would grow up to mate with their own mother and therefore, within one generation, there would potentially be a population able to reproduce normally on the new island," Buley said.

Copyright 2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Our Beacon Group · Post by **Our Beacon Group** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 10:56 pm

Parthenogenesis, that is, creation of the offspring within a female, is a well-known phenomenon in many animals in the lower forms of life. It has never been seen in a mammal. It gives no credensce to the myth of Virgin Birth of Jesus.

Dr. Shabbir :o

Ahmed Mateen · Post by **Ahmed Mateen** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 11:38 pm

I have seen some newspapers relating Komodo dragon's story to the myth of virgin birth of Jesus which is totally ignorance because, the offspring of parthenogenesis will be all female if two like chromosomes determine the female sex (such as systems where XX is female and XY is male), but male if the female sex is determined by unlike chromosomes (such as systems where WZ is female and ZZ is male), because the process involves the inheritance and subsequent duplication of only a single sex chromosome.(For detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis)

And in this case Komodo dragons have W and Z chromosomes - females have one W and one Z, males have two Zs. The egg from the female carries one chromosome, either a W or Z, and when parthenogenesis takes place, either the W or Z is duplicated. This leads to eggs which are WW and ZZ. WW eggs are not viable, but ZZ eggs are, and lead to male baby Komodo dragons.

-May Allah increase us in Knowledge.

Our Beacon Group · Post by **Our Beacon Group** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 11:44 pm

76:2 Behold, it is We who have created the human being from marked out cells, male and female gametes, that joined. Then We passed him through subtle changes. And then We made him a being endowed with Hearing and Sight.

53:45 And that He it is Who creates the two companions, the male and the female (pairs and opposites among His creation).
53:46 From gametes that unite.

Humans are clearly made by the male and female. The Quran doesn't say this about animal-life. So Parthenogenesis is for the animal-world and not for humans. Our DNA is not naturaly programmed to allow it.

Aleikum Salaam

Arnold Yasin Mol

farooq_siddiqui · Post by **farooq_siddiqui** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:07 am

Good discussion. I was thinking along the same lines that this really doesn't have any relation to how human beings reproduce. Just thought it was a good discussion topic and was curious to hear from people in the medical field with Quranic inclination.

Farooq.

Dr. Shabbir · Post by **Dr. Shabbir** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 6:19 pm

Dear Farooq,

Parthenogenesis is a process where a female could become pregnant without male intervention. BUT, this process is confined to lower animals only. To the best of my knowledge, not a single mammalian animal has undergone parthenogenesis in history ever.

Trying to present this as a contributory evidence to the MYTH of the Virgin Birth of the exalted prophet Jesus is a scientific impossibility and wishful thinking of the highest order. :roll:

Shoaib Ali · Post by **Shoaib Ali** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 8:02 pm

Assalam O Alaikum,

Does Quran mentions the process of Parthenogenesis?
May be with the passage of time we wil be able to undestand this mystery :? from Quran?

Aleikum Salaam

Arnold Yasin Mol · Post by **Arnold Yasin Mol** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 8:07 pm

Salam,

May I ask which mystery of the Quran? Nowhere does the Quran mention any mystery or virgin birth.

Mahmood Qasmi · Post by **Mahmood Qasmi** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 5:10 am

PARTHENOGENESIS IS NOT "VIRGIN BIRTH"

To farooq_siddiqui and UALIS,

From what I understand, "Pathenogenesis" is more like a replication that is suited for lower forms of life... just the way cells divide.

Among other traits reptiles have (including regrowth of limbs and extremely fast regeneration of tissue - not observed in mammals) these creatures, though a lot more complex than insects, do not have higher brain functions.

For lizards such as Komodo dragons, the brain lobes are mostly limited to the limbic system:

1) They control very calculated and extremely limited emotional characteristics, which can be replicated indefinitely without eventually going sterile.
2) And since they are very well-adapted for their environment, they may not evolve (consider that they, like other reptiles, have been around in these forms with very little mutation, longer than mammals even existed.) Hence, their replication is an indication that they may have reached a termal/stagnated level of their evolution unless a mutation occurs.

For cloning/replication of humans, it is proposed that this cannot be induced naturally: Why?

1) If it did, the DNA will become stagnated.

2) Also, if parthenogenesis occurs in mammals, then it is unlikely to stop in one generation: It will keep on occuring since it is a copy of the DNA. The same DNA will keep on replicating itself.

3) All prthenogens who shall be born out of parthenogenesis will be FEMALE. Please study genetics before you claim scientific explanations for "virgin birth" in humans...

This may (I could be wrong about this) also indicate that the higher (and more complex and evolutionarily active) the form of biological life, the more dismal the chances of replication/parthenogenesis.

So:
Unless you want to claim that Jesus was a woman, please stop asserting parthenogenesis as a means of his birth!

Shoaib Ali · Post by **Shoaib Ali** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 12:09 am

Dear Arnold and Mehmeeod

Salam-

I did not say that the PARTHENOGENESIS is a Virgin birth!
What i meant was that, in future, we might be able to decode this phenomenon from Quran. As the earlier translators/ulma's of the Quran did not get the scientific verses de-coded rightly, as we have decoded them in our present time.
I hope i have cleared my point on this subject. :wink:

shez · Post by **shez** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 6:16 pm

Very good, thanks for the clarification :-)

farooq_siddiqui · Post by **farooq_siddiqui** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 6:57 pm

Dear Uncle Shabbir and Mr. Qasmi, AA
I did not submit this as an evidence on virgin birth of Jesus. I found the story to be interesting and maybe because I am an engineer, and not a doctor, this well known phenomenon was new to me.
I wanted to learn more about it and hence I posted the story. Thank you for providing the information.
Wa Salaam,
Farooq. :shock:

Arnold Yasin Mol · Post by **Arnold Yasin Mol** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 9:02 pm

Salaam dear Farooq,

It just happens that at a discussion at another forum, a person showed parathenogenesis as proof of the belief in a Virginbirth with Mary. Because of this Maxq replied to your post to make sure people don't confuse it with the miracle virgin belief which is common with Muslims.

You are the victim of 'making a point very clear' because of the discussion at the other forum. Please forgive us, our mindstate at the moment was filled with dis-proving the miracle-virginbirth belief. :D

Mahmood Qasmi · Post by **Mahmood Qasmi** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 2:47 am

Dear bro Farooq,
I think I got carried away due to the heated debate on another forum that has the same topic being discussed. I apologize for this.
The topic you posted is indeed very interesting, but some readers start associating such things with what they think are "miracles" mentioined in the Glorious Quran, so I had to post it just to drive the point home.

Best regards

Dear Uncle Shabbir and Mr. Qasmi, AA
I did not submit this as an evidence on virgin birth of Jesus. I found the story to be interesting and maybe because I am an engineer, and not a doctor, this well known phenomenon was new to me.
I wanted to learn more about it and hence I posted the story. Thank you for providing the information.
Wa Salaam,
Farooq. :shock: