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Ball Python eggs

22 15:21:05

Question
The Ball Python at the Museum where I work just laid a clutch of eggs, two are slugs, the other five are soft and white, two quite large and three much smaller.  As far as I know the snake has never been bred, certainly not while it has been here at the museum, about 20 years.  Can Ball Pythons store sperm?  Should I assume the eggs are all infertile?

Answer
NO!  Pythons have been proven to undergo parthenogenesis (self-fertilization).  It is rare, but it does happen.  I'd incubate and see what happens.  It is believed that somehow the polar bodies left over at the end of meiosis are somehow substituted for sperm cells.  Since the polar bodies have a set of chromosomes the egg starts dividing.