London, July 20 (ANI): A new genetic research has found that stick insects have lived for one million years without sex - a discovery which could help researchers understand how life without sex is possible.
Scientists from Simon Fraser University, Canada, investigated the DNA of Timema stick insects, which live in shrubland around the west coast of the US.
Certain species of Timema stick insects were known to reproduce asexually, with females producing young in "virgin births" without the need for egg fertilisation by males.
The insects instead produce genetic clones of themselves.
Dr Tanja Schwander and her team set out to test how old these species were, and therefore to find out how long they had reproduced in this way.
By analysing the DNA of the insects, the scientists were able to trace back their lineages to identify when they became a distinct species.
The team discovered that five of the asexual stick insects were "ancient", dating back more than 500,000 years. Two of them were even older.
"All the evidence points to Timema tahoe and Timema genevievae having persisted for over one million years without sex," Dr Schwander told BBC News.
"Our research adds to the growing amount of evidence that asexuality does not always result in the rapid extinction of a lineage," she said.
The findings were published in the journal Current Biology. (ANI)
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