Evidence of facultative parthenogenesis in three Neotropical pitviper species of the group.

We examined four suspected cases of facultative parthenogenesis in three species of a neotropical lineage of pitvipers of the group. Reproduction without mating was observed in captive females of and housed alone for seven years (the two former species) and nine years (the latter one). In addition to the observation of captivity data, we investigated molecularly this phenomenon using heterologous microsatellites.