A fruit fly that is the offspring of a virgin birth, after scientists genetically engineered the insects to be able to achieve the rare feat
"For the first time, scientists have managed to induce virgin birth in an animal that usually reproduces sexually: the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster," Cambridge University said. Alexis Sperling, a researcher at the UK's Cambridge University and lead author of the new study, told AFP that she had wanted to study virgin births ever since her pet praying mantis had one.
They then manipulated the genes of the Drosophila melanogaster to match what they saw in its close relative.The research, which took six years, involved more than 220,000 fruit flies.But among those kept in isolation, one to two percent seemingly gave up on ever seeing a male around halfway through their life -- around 40 days -- and had a virgin birth.
Mammals -- including humans -- are not capable of having virgin births anyway because their reproduction requires certain genes from sperm.