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A surprising number of animals can reproduce without sex

Lydia RamseyJun 30, 2016, 18:30 IST

A child touches her pregnant mother's stomach at the last stages of her pregnancy in BordeauxThomson Reuters

Yes, you read that right.

Virgin births are a thing, and they've been happening for millennia in some animals.

It's something called parthenogenesis, which basically just means reproduction without fertilization.

The mother provides both sets of the DNA necessary to create an embryo, which is typically female.

Here are the animals that are capable of having offspring that's genetically all theirs. (Spoiler alert: humans aren't there quite yet.)