Dr Ann Jones

Okay, a manipulative stingray sounds like a brilliant character for a Pixar movie.

Freckle lived for about nine years in a tank with other female rays.

No males.

They just hung out and gossiped and had pillow fights.

I don't know.

Parthenogenesis.

This is nature's virgin birth, a spontaneous pregnancy in a female.

And Freckle was going to become a mother without ever having laid eyes on a male of her own species.

Two of my all-time favourite things coming together, pasta and the absolute tea on people's dating lives.

But Freckle made this look easy.

She's got a little belly, she ate extra fish, she refused to do any work and popped out a ravioli.

Why don't we all do it like that?

Because actually having to do the sex, finding a partner, wooing, sharing bodily fluids, making that all a priority is a bit hard and a bit weird.

Andrew Durso is our guest herpetologist, studier of reptiles, for this series.

It's been observed in Komodo dragons and reticulated pythons.

This is different from freckle because freckle could sexually reproduce if she had access to a male and he met her standards.

But these obligate species only reproduce through parthenogenesis, and thus they're always clones of the mother.

Whiptail lizards, for example, are an American skinky looking lizard who are always Elizabeth and never Elijah because they're always female.

And they even partake in some good old pseudo copulation.

They do a bit of dry humping before they lay their own self-fertilised eggs.