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The oldest snake at the Saint Louis, Missouri Zoo, a ball python that experts say is at least 62 years old, has laid seven eggs despite never having been near a male specimen for at least 15 years.
According to reports from CNN today, the python, which has no name and is identified only by the number ‘361003’ and has lived at the zoo since 1961, laid its eggs on July 23. “It was a surprise. Frankly, we did not expect her to make another egg hatch,” chief zoological herpetology Mark Wanner told the US broadcaster.
Ball pythons are native to central and western Africa and can reproduce asexually, Wanner explained, noting that females can also store sperm to delay fertilization. However, the longest period ever documented so far was seven years.
The Saint Louis Zoo python had laid another hatchling eggs in 2009, but none had hatched and even on that occasion 361003 had not been in contact with a male.
The expert speculated that the python may have been near a male in the late 1980s and early 1990s because at that time keepers used to put the snakes in buckets while cleaning their cages. “We say more than 15 years, but I mean, it is more likely that 30 years have passed since she was physically with a man,” Wanner concluded.
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