

Ancient Survivors Could Redefine Sex - digital55
http://www.quantamagazine.org/20141119-ancient-survivors-could-redefine-sex/

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icodestuff
One question that's not well-answered in this article is how new bdelloid
individuals are created. Do they bud like yeast? Do they lay eggs? Do they
just cleave in two?

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ars
They lay unfertilized eggs. That's why they looked for a male that would
fertilize the eggs, but didn't find one.

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oska
Adding slightly to ars' answer. The method of reproduction is called
_parthenogenesis_. Here is the simple wiki entry:

[http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis](http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis)

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kijin
So "traditional" sex is a PRNG that first generates a large number of random
combinations of bits, picks two of them at random, returns those two, and
discards the rest. Sounds rather inefficient, right?

These bdelloids, on the other hand, just decided to shuffle the bits in place.
A bit insecure (prone to errors and contamination), but very efficient in
highly constrained (frequently dehydrated) environments.

