> It turns out that the Komodo sex determination system means the offspring are always male.
Do you mean when it is not parthenogenenis? How does this work?
EDIT: these are some of the snakes that I think it has been (partially) documented for:
Copperhead
Fur de Lance
Some types of rattlesnakes
Burmese Pythons
Reticulated Pythons
> Do you mean when it is _not_ parthenogenenis? How does this work?
I mean all Komodo offspring produced by parthenogenenis are male even though offspring from usual sexual reproduction in Komodos can be either gender. The reason is that the Komodo sex determination system is logically opposite to that of mammals. Specifically, whereas in mammals, a pair of homologous sex chromosomes XX, produces a female, in Komodos this produces a male, ZZ. (Parthenogenenis means there is also the possibility of Komodo WW embryo but these are not viable.)
Happy to hear someone else thinks this is interesting.
So that means that the female will have ZW, but it would double its Z_1 and give its offspring Z_1Z_1?