ABOVE: A California condor tending to a chick
JOSEPH BRANDT/USFWS
When the population of California condors (Gymnogyps californianus) dropped to fewer than two dozen birds in 1982, some conservationists thought the species was doomed. But the California Condor Recovery Program successfully bred the animals back from the brink. As a part of that program, researchers collected DNA samples from the birds to gain insights into the genetic diversity of the population and to reduce potential inbreeding. Those molecular samples have now revealed something completely unexpected: two of the California condor females produced young without a male partner, a phenomenon called parthenogenesis.
The asexually produced offspring were especially surprising to scientists because both female birds were housed with males that sired other offspring with them before and after the unfertilized yet viable eggs were produced (one in 2001 and one in 2009). “Why it happened? We just don’t know,” Oliver Ryder, study ...
