BIRDS do it. Bees do it. Even aquatic fleas do it. Yes, they have sex. But in these creatures, females can also produce offspring without any male contribution. Until the birth of Kaguya the mouse was announced in Nature this week, this was deemed an impossible feat in mammals. Now we know that it can be done.
Kaguya is the “daughter” of two female mice. No sperm nor any male cell was involved in her creation. Female cells alone were used. Just as the birth of Dolly the sheep in 1997 shattered the dogma that an adult cell could never give rise to a new individual, so Kaguya’s birth demolishes the notion…
