Courtesy of Chester Zoo
Enter the dragons – meet the latest Chester Zoo additions, the long-awaited Komodo Dragon babies born to virgin mum, Flora.
Flora, one of the zoo’s two female Komodo dragons – the world’s largest lizard - became an overnight Christmas star when it was revealed in a groundbreaking article in the world’s leading science journal Nature, that she had laid a clutch of fertile eggs without ever being mixed with, or being mated by, a male dragon.
After an anxious wait, Chester Zoo’s keeping staff are celebrating the hatching of five baby dragons. Two fertile eggs still remain in an incubator.
The arrival of the five babies – which measure 40-45 centimetres in length and weigh 100-125grams each (larger than many full grown adult lizards) – brings a happy end to Flora’s story which began last year.
When Flora laid her eggs back on 21st May, they were put in an incubator where three of them collapsed after only a couple of weeks. When they were opened however, staff were astounded to find that they contained embryos – showing that they were fertile.
Scientists at Liverpool University under the guidance of Dr Phill Watts carried out genetic fingerprinting on the three eggs and on the adult Komodo dragons at the zoo. This ‘paternity’ testing proved that Flora was indeed both the ‘mother’ and the ‘father’ of the fertile eggs.
Enter the dragons – meet the latest Chester Zoo additions, the long-awaited Komodo Dragon babies born to virgin mum, Flora.
Flora, one of the zoo’s two female Komodo dragons – the world’s largest lizard - became an overnight Christmas star when it was revealed in a groundbreaking article in the world’s leading science journal Nature, that she had laid a clutch of fertile eggs without ever being mixed with, or being mated by, a male dragon.
After an anxious wait, Chester Zoo’s keeping staff are celebrating the hatching of five baby dragons. Two fertile eggs still remain in an incubator.
The arrival of the five babies – which measure 40-45 centimetres in length and weigh 100-125grams each (larger than many full grown adult lizards) – brings a happy end to Flora’s story which began last year.
When Flora laid her eggs back on 21st May, they were put in an incubator where three of them collapsed after only a couple of weeks. When they were opened however, staff were astounded to find that they contained embryos – showing that they were fertile.
Scientists at Liverpool University under the guidance of Dr Phill Watts carried out genetic fingerprinting on the three eggs and on the adult Komodo dragons at the zoo. This ‘paternity’ testing proved that Flora was indeed both the ‘mother’ and the ‘father’ of the fertile eggs.
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