Question

Natural parthenogenesis is found in.
A) Housefly
B) Honeybee
C) Drosophila
D) All of these

Answer 1

Hint: Parthenogenesis is a type of reproduction without fertilization. Here, the offspring are produced through the females by no contribution of the male. It takes place while an unfertilized egg develops into an offspring. It has been seen in many plants, insects and animals.

Complete Answer:
The process of parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction in which organisms reproduce without fertilization. It is seen to occur naturally in honey bees where drone bees are produced by parthenogenesis. The female worker honey bees are formed from only fertilized eggs while the unfertilized ones result in drone bees formation.

So, the correct answer is option (B) 'Honeybee'.

Additional information:
Parthenogenesis is the development of an embryo from an unfertilized egg or if a spermatozoa does penetrate the egg, there's no union of male and female pronuclei. It is a mode of asexual reproduction.
On the premise of division, it can be of following types-
- Apomictic parthenogenesis- the mature egg cells are produced after mitotic divisions. The offsprings produced in this are complete clones of the mother.
- Automictic parthenogenesis – case where the female undergoes meiosis and produces haploid offspring which might be 1/2 of just like the female.

Note: In honeybee colonies, the fertilized eggs grow to be females, and the unfertilized eggs will grow to be male drones. This is a method referred to as haploid parthenogenesis: the unfertilized egg has best 1/2 of the wide variety of chromosomes of a fertilized egg.