May 4, 2011 14:02 GMT  ·  By
This is one of the females in the new species of lizards created at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research
   This is one of the females in the new species of lizards created at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research

Experts with the Stowers Institute for Medical Research announce the creation of a new, all-female lizard species. The animals were produced in a scientific laboratory, and their “genesis” is not entirely unique – a similar speciation process is known to have taken place in nature as well.

Though experts never observed it directly, they are aware of its existence, and the fact that they succeeded in their endeavors demonstrates that they interpreted the process' tell-tale signs correctly.

According to the investigators, the process through which all-female species multiply is called parthenogenesis, which is a fancy way of saying that the animals clone themselves. Embryos of such species do not require fertilization to begin developing.

For many years, scientists considered there all-female species to be flukes, evolutionary mistakes that led nowhere in particular. However, the new investigation might change this view, the team says.

Over the past 10 years alone, more than 80 groups of fish, amphibian and reptiles proved to be unisexual, and capable of multiplying through cloning. The fact that this phenomenon is widespread implies that it's not simply a fluke, but rather an evolutionary strategy.

“It’s recreating the events that lead to new species. It relates to the question of how these unisexual species arise in the first place,,” explains SIMR cell biologist and study leader Peter Baumann.

He and his team published details of how the new lizards were created in the May 3 issue of the esteemed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Wired reports.

“There are recognized species for which that hybridization event occurred 100,000 years ago. But there are also hybrids that have arisen in the last five years,” the expert goes on to say.

“If you go to New Mexico and look around, you can find them. They’ve also arisen in the lab, but they’re sterile,” Baumann adds. He says that the new lizards he and his team created in the lab via cross-breeding does not yet have a name.

What it does have is 68 healthy members, all of them female, and some of them with more eggs on the way. By surviving until the fourth generation (the study is still ongoing), the animals demonstrate that they could conceivably survive in the wild as well.

But the success also made researchers think about the way the duality of genders works in species.

“Is it really the case that, once a species is unisexual, it’s set in stone, and it will be that way until it dies out? Or is it there a chance that material in unisexual lineages could find its way back? Baumann explains.