Procambarus clarkii clones!

So, a few weeks ago I got wind of various "rumors" being spread out amongst the various forums I'm a member of, that Procambarus clarkii was recently discovered to have had the ability to reproduce asexually (like that of a Marmorkreb).

Now, in none of these places did anyone provide references or articles to back up the statement, so it was largely brushed off as someone having obtained a female that had a stored sperm plug from a prior encounter with a male. Thus, allowing her to berry and produce offspring without the presence of a male around (this happens a lot, and you'll see many threads on forums about it).

Anyway, in the course of a series of correspondence between myself and Dr. Zen Faulkes, this mentioning came up again. And he very nicely clarified a few things for me, namely that this rumor is in fact true. Genetically identical Procambarus clarkii have been found. How cool is that? A previously well-studied and commonly used test animal that was thought to only be able to reproduce sexually can in fact clone itself!

If you'd like more information on this, check out Zen's site (the first source link) or the original researchers' published findings (the second source link)!

Sources:

marmorkrebs.blogspot.com/2008/12/procambarus-clarkii-clones.html

biolsci.org/v04p0279.htm