Beyoncé famously sung about "Single Ladies," but we're not sure she had this in mind while writing the song.
The University of Texas at Arlington is currently gathering as many flowerpot snakes as they can find in order to conduct a study on the amount of virgin births within the all-female species.
According to the Dallas Morning News Matthew Fujita, professor of biology at UTA, hopes that by conducting this study scientists can fully understand why and how parthenogenesis occurs in animals, and that these insights will shed light on how harmful mutations accumulate, which could help support conservation efforts and help protect biodiversity.
Fujita said, "How can we accurately predict how DNA is changing?
"[If] we can use parthenogens, because they reproduce a lot, you can get identical mother-daughter offspring for many generations and accurately predict mutation rate [in an organism]."
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