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Asked by henryjones to Clare, Mariana, Pedro, Robert, Susanne on 20 Nov 2012.
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Robert Insall answered on 20 Nov 2012:
Plants – yes, they do it all the time. I make cuttings in the garden. A pot plant called Kalanchoe makes little clones of itself on its leaves & they fall off to start new clone plants.
Animals – less often, we tend to use sex instead. Small animals like Hydra can clone themselves. Amoebas usually only work that way.
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Susanne Muekusch answered on 20 Nov 2012:
Two more plant examples from my garden: strawberries (the clone above ground via twines or whatever the right english word is) and raspberries (they clone via the roots). We had one raspberry bush and everywhere new plants are popping up. I bet when we go on vacation next summer our house will look like sleeping beauty’s 🙂
Animals: They only ones I can think of are some snails.
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Clare Taylor answered on 20 Nov 2012:
Would you believe that there examples (sort of) in sharks! This happened when a shark which had been kept in captivity gave birth to offspring genetically identical to itself, although its eggs hadn’t been fertlised. Unbelievable! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081010173054.htm
This can also happen in other animals like lizards, and fish!
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Mariana Campos answered on 21 Nov 2012:
Hello Henry,
It usually is not the main kind of reproduction system but it happens in quite a lot of different species: like ants, bees and wasps, whiptails, geckos, rock lizards, blindsnakes, Komodo dragons and boa constrictors, and also in some sharks. Apparently there are no reports that this happens in mammals.
The reason why this is not so good is because this means that the progeny is exactly like the mother/father. So, if something changes in the environment around these individuals, they are less likely to be fit to this new environment.
Plants do it quite a lot as you can see by the other answers.
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