Virgin Birth: What Can We Learn From Dragons?

This seems a suitable topic for a time just post-Christmas. Only around 70 (0.1%) vertebrates are capable of producing offspring without fertilisation (parthenogenesis). The Kimodo dragon is one such animal where the phenomenon has been noted in a number of zoo animals (https://greatkomododragon.blogspot.com/2019/04/komodo-dragon-parthenogenesis.html). Unlike mammals (where males are XY and females XX), male Kimodo dragons have identical sex chromosomes (designated ZZ) whereas females are ZW. In the absence of a male, a female Kimodo dragon fertilises her own eggs, with a polar body (a kind of left-over from the process of meiosis in egg production). Meiosis is the form of reduction division, generating eggs and sperm (which are haploid or 1N). Self-fertilisation restores the number of chromosomes to the normal (diploid or 2N) number (40, in the case of these lizards). Only fertilised eggs that are ZZ are viable (ZW and WW die). This is why she produces only male dragons who are not simply clones of their mother (just like Mary and Jesus?).