For many years it has been a great mystery as to why rattlesnakes can suddenly appear to have “virgin births” or births with no sexual interaction or interaction of any kind with another rattlesnake. When they have sprung pregnant, it was always deemed an incredible feat and a wonder of science. The first “virgin birth” of a rattlesnake was documented in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, a work that presents detailed claimed virgin births of snakes. This can finally now be explained with new research and understanding just recently being discovered.
Virgin births in any animal, known as parthenogenesis, were considered scientifically impossible, and for this reason such phenomena has astounded students of natural biology for many years. Recently stated by one of the authors of the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society Warren Both stated that it "has now been observed to occur naturally within all lineages of jawed vertebrates, with the exception of mammals…We have recently seen genetic confirmation in species such as boa constrictors, rainbow boas, various shark species, Komodo dragons, and domestic turkeys, to name a few”.
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This statement makes it officially possible for species outside of mammal principally to give birth without the presence of a male as far back as five years previously. In the particular well known case of the rattlesnake, the babes were birthed five years after conception or insemination. There are facts proving that certain types of animals can store for long time spans the semen of the other species in order to create life at a later date. This is impossible in most mammals and humans especially. The method has been ascribed to nature's way of preserving certain more delicate or hated species by creating a way for them to give life in the absence of males in order to repopulate their kind.