Realizing that they reproduce via parthenogenesis, and this involves laying eggs, I think the appropriate title would be “she big, she attac”. :)
It’s a strange species. Common ancestor around 1988.
invasive plants do this all the time, they are hard to eradicate once they become establish.
The downside to cloning as a reproductive system is that the entire population will have the same genetics and be vulnerable to the same diseases and poisons.
Aphids don’t care.
Aphids do sexual reproduction in autumn. It’s just spring/summer they clone.
How can I subscribe to aphids trivia?
I wish I didn’t know.
As far as I can tell 1 week to hatch and 1 week to reach maturity seems like a good rule of thumb. Different species have different temperature optimums but I can’t see how that is practically relevant to anyone.
I wish I didn’t know.
It could be worse. You could know that bedbugs reproduce through a process called “tramatic insemination”
I knew that.
They also thrive on incest, and love to breed with their own parents and siblings.
Bedbugs are already just super gross, but the more you learn about their biology the more gross they become.
Wouldn’t there still be random mutations caused by epigenetics over time?
if the environment is stable , then parthonogenesis would be common. as for deleterious effects, you mostly see that inbreeding more than parthenogenesis, since if your cloning, epigenitc markers usually remain the same.
the only thing is they wont able to adapt to sudden changes in environment or another invasive species outcompetes them.
Sure, but the population would be so similar that it probably wouldn’t make much difference.
the Clone Wars would have been a lot more interesting if the clone troopers just split/budded, would explain all the different patterns and emerging behaviors
Get your stormtroopers the starfish cloning, trooper loses an arm, wait a week and two troopers
I hope he’s at least tasty
He make a good snak
Too many crawdads are not a problem as long as you got a pot of boiling water
They have also caused the ecrevisse à pattes blanches (the native european one) to go near extinct.
They’re actually quite a big problem. They dig in the sides of canals and dikes causing them to destabilise and collapse
Way too many crawdads are not a problem as long as you boil the entire sea
These are freshwater ones though
Through global warming we will boil the entire world.
Thus solving the problem once and for all
Marbled crayfish are pretty cool. A new species that evolved in captivity
Oh, these things are wild! A new species that clones itself rapidly, can carry a crayfish-killing plague, and is relatively rapidly colonizing the planet (freshwater only).
This feels like a thing spiders do. They can produce several clutches of eggs after mating once. If, without a mate, they could just… do that, “even a single wolf spider egg can contaminate an entire planet.”
Its a good year for crayfish sci-fi horror
people often forget invasive species often bring diseases with them, that they are adapted to but in a new environment with others species that have no natural immunity, it would wipe native populations faster than the actual animal itself.
