Do n’t be fox by its unremarkable appearance , theSqualius alburnoidesis a very foreign Pisces the Fishes indeed , especially with regards to its self - cloning and testicle - stealing sex life .

Scientists from the University of Lisbon have discovered that the male of the coinage is able to clone itself through a mysterious process known as androgenesis . Although research worker have documented this variety of intimate parasitism before , their work is the   first evidence of naturally occurring androgenesis in vertebrates . Their sketch into this endangered self - replicating mastermind was of late publish in the journalRoyal Society Open Science .

The researchers taste 261 randomly selectedS. alburnoidesfrom the Ocreza river in central Portugal only to discover , much to their surprise , that one of the Pisces was genetically identical to another one and had only paternal chromosome . However , they found that this somebody did not apportion the mitochondrial DNA with his father , as they can only hold this from their female parent ’s egg .

It ’s unclear how ofttimes this phenomenon occurs among the species . In fact , there ’s a chance it could just be a freak occurrent . Nevertheless , this one occurrence remains “ the first report of naturally happen unwritten androgenesis among vertebrates , ” the author write . Previously it ’s only been take in in arthropods and mollusks .

Here ’s how they think it might work . Androgenesisis a way of facts of life where all the genetic material of the offspring come from the male . In terms of this fish , the male produces sperm with twice the amount of genetic content as common . They will then hijack a female nut that ( for some reason ) does n’t contain any hereditary material . Perhaps the males put down the egg ’s genetic textile somehow or perhapsthe egg “ accidentally ” just does n’t hold chromosomes , the researcher include they really are n’t sure yet .

S.alburnoides , typically no longer than around 15 cm ( 5.9 column inch ) , can be find swimming in the river of Portugal and Spain . To add to the weirdness of this niggling beast , it ’s actually a hybrid mintage of two disjoined Pisces mintage , one of which is now believed to be nonextant . This could help explain how the Pisces came to be capable of such a gonzo method of asexually reproducing .

“ In a tidy sum of these cases , ” evolutionary biologist Laura Ross , who was not involve in the study , toldthe Scientist,“these bizarre types of reproduction seem to have originate by two closely related coinage interbreed at some full point in their evolutionary history and something live really , really amiss with reproductive memory . ”