In Chester, England, a Komodo Dragon mother has laid eggs without the intervention of a male.

This has enormous implications in the species' reproduction, which is now on IUCN’s Red List of the most endangered animals, threatened by total extinction.

There are fewer than 4,000 in the wild, scattered among the islands of Indonesia.

Mating occurs between May and August, with the eggs laid in September. During this period, males fight over females and territory by wrestling each other on their hind legs to the ground, the one being pinned down losing.

In Chester, England it seems no fighting took place for any female, but that did not hinder the Komodo female to lay 11 eggs in May 2006. In the meantime three of them collapsed, allowing scientists to observe that they contained almost fully developed embryos; this meant that a process of fertilisation took place.

According to the Chester Zoo caretakers, no male were in the vicinity for more than a year. This has also been confirmed by scientists at Liverpool University.

DNA tests have now proven that the lizard was both "mother" and "father" of the fertile eggs. this is the first time that self-fertilisation has been reported in Komodo Dragons.

Theoretically, a female Komodo dragon in the wild could swim to a new island and then establish an entirely new population of dragons. The genetics of self-fertilization in lizards means that all her hatchlings would have to be male. This would grow up to mate with their own mother and therefore, within one generation, there would potentially be a population able to reproduce normally on the new island.