No sex for all-girl fish species

No sex for all-girl fish species

Source: bbc

4/23/2008

A fish species, which is all female, has survived for 70,000 years without reproducing sexually, experts believe.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh think the Amazon Molly may be employing special genetic survival "tricks" to avoid becoming extinct.

The species, found in Texas and Mexico, interacts with males of other species to trigger its reproduction process.

The offspring are clones of their mother and do not inherit any of the male's DNA.

Typically, when creatures reproduce asexually, harmful changes creep into their genes over many generations.

The species will eventually have problems reproducing and can often fall victim to extinction.

Scientists at Edinburgh University have been studying complex mathematical models on a highly powerful computing system to look at the case of the Amazon Molly.

Researchers calculated the time to extinction for the fish based on modelling genetic changes over many thousands of generations.

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