- This is a baby anaconda and this may be one
of the coolest things that's ever happened to me
in the 35 years that I've been breeding snakes.
That's right, we had a baby anaconda born.
This baby Green Anaconda is the first baby Green Anaconda
that I've ever had in my entire career.
And this has been a kind of milestone
for me to eventually produce.
Now you guys remember we were trying to breed Aries and Ivy
and we are super excited about it.
Well you guys will be a little bit surprised here
that Ivy did not have babies.
That's right, and this story actually started last night.
(upbeat music)
So we're actually open here tonight at the Reptarium
and guess what, our male anaconda, Aries,
happens to be eating something kind of interesting.
Now, of course you remember that I didn't understand
why Aries and Ivy didn't breed this year
because they both look like they're about the same thing.
Well guess what we found?
We found Aries actually having infertile ova.
That's right, these are unfertilized babies, basically.
So Aries is not a boy, it is actually a girl.
And this is the interesting part,
Aries is actually eating the actual ova.
And that's what females will do when they have infertile ova
is often times eat the ova.
It gives them nutrition.
But you can see what's happening here, absolutely wonderful.
Something you're not gonna see very often,
but I'll tell you what, I cannot believe my male anaconda
is a girl and she had a bunch of infertile ova.
Take a look at this.
Absolutely insane.
I never thought I would see that in my entire life.
I guess I should have sexed that animal out
and made sure it was a male when I got it.
When I was told it was a male, I just assumed it was,
but obviously it definitely wasn't.
It looks like she's looking to eat another one.
It's really truly amazing how mother nature works, right.
So basically what happens is often times
when a female has infertile ova,
rather than just wasting that infertile ova,
they will actually ingest them
and eat them just like Aries is doing right now.
That just gives them all that energy that they expelled
by being gravid for up to three to five months, right.
So it's really cool.
And then, Aries literally took one right out of my hand.
It was absolutely an amazing experience.
What a cool thing to witness.
So just after we opened up, we actually notice
that Aries was producing some ova, which number one,
blew me away because I always thought that Aries was a boy.
I was sold him as a boy.
My mistake to not actually sex him.
But because of his size and everything else like that,
I should say her size, I just figured that she was a he.
The fact is, is that we started to see her having ova
and then it was so cool to see her not only having ova,
but then of course eating that ova.
That is an amazing thing.
And in nature, it's really cool, right,
that they actually won't waste that.
They're gonna have ova,
they might as well put it into nutrition.
It's not gonna do anything so they actually eat it.
That was an amazing experience,
but that wasn't what the craziest part is.
The craziest part is what happened next.
To be totally honest with you, we just expected Aries
to have a bunch of infertile ova because, again,
it was just two females and Aries has never been in
with another anaconda other than Ivy that's a female.
And then, we noticed a baby sticking out of Aries.
We were completely blow away.
And sure enough, Aries had a live baby.
This was something that we never thought was gonna happen.
I didn't think Aries was a female, obviously,
so I didn't expect even infertile ova.
But to have a live baby, a virgin live baby,
was absolutely incredible.
It's called parthenogenesis, absolutely a rare occurrence
with an animal like this.
What an amazing thing.
And to actually see her give birth to that animal
was something that I just never thought I would see.
Wow, we have a baby Green anaconda being born
right in front of us.
- [Female] Jay, what do you have?
- A little baby anaconda.
(upbeat music)
- So, baby Green Anaconda.
I cannot believe that Aries had a baby.
Now, you might be asking yourself,
well how did Aries have a baby
when Ivy's a female, he's a female?
There's something that actually is called parthenogenesis.
Parthenogenesis is basically a virgin birth.
It's reproduction from an ovum without fertilization,
especially as a normal process in some invertebrates
and lower plants.
So like I mentioned, it's a virgin birth.
Aries here, which doesn't look very happy,
is actually a momma.
And she's like a virgin momma here.
So the interesting thing about it is,
number one, we have to start feeding her.
Cause I cannot believe that that size anaconda
could actually have several ovum and a live baby.
And you saw how big that baby was.
That is absolutely incredible.
So she is gonna one day be as big as Ivy now,
but we have to really put the food to her.
And then the second thing is, obviously,
it's no longer Aries, right.
Aries, you're a momma, can you believe that?
So we need a new name for Aries.
Let me know in the comments what you think a great name
for a beautiful female Green Anaconda
that we thought was a male.
Now it's just crazy.
Now I'm on the look for a male anaconda
cause now I have three female anacondas.
Of course, Ivy, Aries,
whatever name that's gonna end up being,
and then of course, we have Verde.
So we have three female anacondas.
Not to mention with parthogenesis,
they're little clones of the parent.
So now we actually have four female anacondas.
Is that crazy?
Now I'm not sure that Lori's gonna let me keep it or not.
But it is absolutely incredible and it is so cool
to have seen this experience.
One of the coolest things, I can be honest,
that I've ever seen, ever in all the years
I have been doing it.
I cannot believe that we actually produced one baby,
live Green Anaconda.
I looked around the enclosure a little earlier just to see
if there was a chance she could have had another one,
but unfortunately it was just one baby.
But hey, I'm not complaining because that's one more baby
than I expected.
I certainly thought Ivy was gonna have babies,
and here it is, Aries has babies.
How crazy is that?
And good morning everybody, and welcome to the vlog.
I hope the start of your day is absolutely incredible.
Obviously, my day is absolutely amazing.
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So just so you guys know, this is what an infertile ova is.
It's basically a flesh mass that was supposed to form
into a baby, but it's not fertilized.
When it's not fertilized, it's just kind of a lump.
Think of it like an egg, but not with the shell.
This is the infertile ova.
And this is what Aries, or whatever we're calling her
was actually eating afterwards.
So she ate the vast majority.
She left a couple of them behind.
But other than that, she basically,
as she was actually dispelling them,
she was eating them at the same time.
One of the weirdest things of the world,
but isn't that fricking cool?
I absolutely love, I mean it's such a weird thing.
I can't believe this is even happening.
Lori, I know you're gonna be excited about this.
- Mmm, I don't know.
What is this?
- [Brian] What is it?
- Shut the hell up.
- [Brian] Isn't it crazy?
- I did not believe it was true.
- [Brian] It's true.
- Are you freaking kidding me?
- [Brian] Isn't it wild?
- Is it mean as hell?
- [Brian] It's a little nippy. - Yeah.
- [Brian] But look at it, it looks healthy as could be,
tongue is popping. - Okay question.
Did you sex it?
- [Brian] It's a girl.
- Oh. (chuckles)
- [Brian] So we gotta keep one more girl.
- No, we don't - [Brian] Yeah.
- No, we don't - [Brian] We can't get rid
of our first baby anaconda.
- We can.
- This is uh, this is a special baby.
This is a partheno baby.
We got no choice but to keep it.
Four female anacondas aren't bad.
- [Lori] That's, it's not good.
- [Brian] She just has a little bit of umbilical,
so be careful.
- That's just freaking insane.
- [Brian] It is crazy.
(laughing)
Isn't it wild?
- That is crazy.
I don't even, this just doesn't even make any sense.
- [Brian] Oh, she just tried to bite ya.
She likes you, Lori.
- [Lori] Yeah, no, yeah you can go.
- All right, so there it is.
So, add one more anaconda to the lineup.
- To the website.
- [Brian] No.
- I wanna try,
just very carefully.
Grab on my hands.
Oh there you go.
He'll eventually calm down, or she'll eventually calm down.
A little better, she might feel a little better on her web.
So it's also important to remember, guys, especially here
in where we live here in Michigan,
there's not too many spiders
that are harmful to us as humans.
Especially if you don't go out of your way
in messing with them too much.
Now this is, like I said, I'm moving him because it's better
that he gets to a place that's better, just more,
just safer for him.
He'll get plenty of bugs over here at these eggs
because there's a poison berry tree over here.
So it'll probably have all kinds of bugs that he can eat.
In a natural habitat, right where he belongs.
- One thing about reptiles that have live birth
is right after they have that live birth,
often times they're pretty nasty.
They are definitely upset.
You know, I don't know if it's because they've been
off of food for a while.
I don't know if it's the fact
that they've just been through labor.
But you can tell here, that it's certainly,
even with Ivy coming over,
Aries is definitely upset about it,
or whatever we're gonna end up calling her.
The fact is, is that even if I went in there right now,
there's a good chance that I'm gonna take a bite.
So I have to be a little careful.
I'll probably give her a couple days
and then give her a nice big meal.
And typically after that nice big meal
they actually calm down.
Because I've actually had snakes that have been super tame
that have had live babies and then have bit me
as soon as I'm trying to take the babies out.
So we'll definitely give Aries a little bit of space.
Now you may think that parthenogenesis is some rare thing
in all animals.
The truth is, there's some pretty special animals.
Take for instance, these Mourning Geckos right here.
These guys, believe it or not,
only produce with parthenogenesis.
That's right.
The entire species only produces in parthenogenesis.
And what I mean by that is that, believe it or not,
every single Mourning Gecko is a female.
That's right, there is no male Mourning Geckos,
only female Mourning Geckos.
So you can see in here they'll lay eggs all over the place
and they'll just continue to reproduce.
That's why it's so easy to breed Mourning Geckos,
is cause you're actually not breeding them.
You're just putting them in an enclosure
and when they get to size,
they'll actually start having eggs all over the place.
Now those eggs, they always lay in pairs
and they're really hard and they adhere to the side.
And then they end up hatching out little tiny babies.
But it's just so interesting that there's an entire species
that is parthenogenetic.
And believe it or not, it's not the only species.
There's other lizards that have the exact same thing,
where there are no males in the entire species.
I mean, how crazy is mother nature, right.
I mean it's crazy.
I mean, listen, I'm glad that humans need males
or Lori would get rid of me for sure.
There's no doubt about that.
What it is, Mourning Geckos are cool,
but it is much more rare for animals like anacondas
to have parthenogenesis for sure.
But we just got a baby anaconda
and I am over the moon happy about it.
Hey, girl, how you doing today?
Interestingly enough, Lucy once
was actually had a parthenogenetic clutch.
So we didn't breed her that year
and she ended up having two eggs that were fertile.
Now both those eggs went full-term,
but unfortunately when we went to cut the eggs,
when they were at that time when they needed to hatch,
both the babies were deformed and didn't live.
Now sometimes that happens with parthenogenesis as well.
And sometimes, yeah,
because there's no male actually fertilizing it,
the animal can be deformed
and not actually make it through it.
So although Lucy did have a parthenogenetic clutch
of two eggs, we didn't get any babies
that were clones of actual Lucy.
But it still was a really cool experience.
You in a good mood today, girl or no?
She's doing really well.
I love her.
And we're gonna feed her in the next couple days.
So again, parthenogenesis does happen.
It seems to be more common in reptiles, for whatever reason.
Well not every snake
that was born today was parthenogenetic.
And we actually have a collection
that was actually a Yellow Belly bred
to a Super Stripe Spider.
The Super Stripe Spider is a Spider, a Specter,
and a Yellow Belly.
It's an allelic, meaning that everything would either be
Yellow belly or Specter.
They have to all be one or the other
so we have two of these that are actually the Super Stripes
which are the Specter and the Yellow Belly mix.
Because again, one side has the Yellow Belly,
the other side has the Specter and Yellow Belly.
So of course, the ones that have Specter and Yellow Belly
come out Super Striped.
Now this animal here is actually a Specter Ball Python.
They look pretty similar to the Yellow Belly Ball Python,
but there is a little bit of a difference.
If you look at the belly here,
the bellies are always like kind of marbled on the side,
a little bit yellow.
Not all Yellow Bellies have yellow bellies, weirdly enough.
But they always have that marbling,
or that kind of flaming up the sides.
This would be another example
of a really nice Specter Ball Python.
You can see it doesn't have that same belly thing.
It's got a little bit of marbling,
but nothing like the normal Yellow Belly's.
And then we actually have one of the Yellow Belly
and Yellow Belly combos here, which of course are the ivory
or the white Ball Python with black eyes
with the yellow stripe down it's back.
And then we ended up producing one of these
which is absolutely a ripper here.
This is actually the Spider Super Stripe.
So this is a Spider, it's a Specter and it is a Yellow Belly
and it's absolutely wonderful.
So again, not everything is parthenogenetic here.
As a matter of fact, the majority of the stuff
is not parthenogenetic and it happens to be normal hatch.
Just like this, and these are some pretty awesome babies.
How insane is that that we got a...
How insane is it that we got a virgin birth,
little baby Green Anaconda.
I am so excited.
I hope you guys are too.
Let me know in comments what you think.
If you enjoyed this video, here's a playlist,
you can watch a couple more.
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Have an absolutely wonderful day, reptile army.
Remember, be kind to somebody and I promise,
I'll see ya in the next one.