10 interesting facts about snakes that you never knew (+Pics)

7. Virgin Births

Previously female Komodo dragons, sharks, turkeys, chickens and has been seen giving birth without being conceived by the male. All these animal were kept in captivity. But in 2012, a team of researchers studying the spawn of cottonmouths and copperheads in North America, were shocked to discover that around 2.5 to 5 percent of pit vipers had virgin birth. This phenomenon is called facultative parthenogenesis and the reasons are unknown. All they know is that – the haploid cells that essentially needs input from the father to create a new snake, in this case, merges with each other to create future serpents.