Go condors!

Did you hear the news? Two female California condors, a rare and endangered species, have just hatched chicks without any assistance from a male.

I don’t mean they simply kept the nest warm. I mean they did the whole process, including conception, on their own, without a male.

I find this mind-blowing.

Parthenogenesis, the scientific name for the process casually known as “virgin birth,” is fairly well documented within the animal world. Not mammals so much, but fish, reptiles, sharks, honeybees and birds are all on record as being able to produce offspring without males.

If you ask me, that is a lot to wrap the mind around.

In the things I thought I understood about the world, one was the basic essential requirements of reproduction, namely the need for both a male and a female to be involved. And yet, here we find, not so. Turns out there are many, many examples of females reproducing on their own when males are not available.

What’s different about the two newest baby condors is that, unlike every other known example of this phenomena, there were males available. The mama condors live in a conservation sanctuary run by the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance with males present. What’s more, both mamas are known to have mated with males previously. However, extensive genetic testing conclusively rules out any genetic contribution from the males. So, even with a male available, the birds chose (if we can say that birds made an active choice), to reproduce parthenogenetically.

Isn’t that wild?

This is the latest really cool thing in the realm of really cool things in the natural world, particularly related to reproduction and the continuation of life.

For example, the clownfish. Do you know about clownfish? They live in communal groups, all male except for one lead female. Only one. When the lead female dies, her partner fish literally changes his gender from male to female and increases his size to that of the larger lead female. Ramifications to the plot line of “Finding Nemo” aside, isn’t that just amazing?

Clownfish are not the only fish capable of a physical change of gender. Several other species do likewise. The wrasse is the opposite of the clownfish, with females changing to males. 

In addition, several species of frog are capable of spontaneous gender change, thus providing the fantastic plot twist in “Jurassic Park.” Some frogs switch gender as a result of exposure to human pesticides, but for many it’s just a natural feature of the animal.

More common than full physical change are animals that retain the reproductive organs of their birth gender while mimicking plumage, color patterns, scent markers or behaviors of the opposite gender.

There are also a large number of animals, particularly birds, that are gyandromorphs, animals that possess both male and female reproductive organs. Recently there have been some stunning photographs of one such cardinal circulating on nature sites.

Nature is just astounding in its diversity and abundance! What a glorious, beautiful world it is, and how much we have yet to discover and understand about how our planet works. I am delighted to know such wonders exist all around us.

As to the new mama condors, I say mazel tov and congratulations on the healthy baby chicks.