The Saturday briefing

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER by CAROLINE FORD

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Is there anything you're yearning to know? Send your questions, on any subject, to the contacts given below, and we will do our best to answer them ...

Q The stick insects I bought for my grandson have laid eggs that hatched, even though they are all female. Is this cloning and do other animals reproduce this way?

Elaine Gordon, via email

A The vast majority of animals need to breed to reproduce but a handful of animals can multiply without mating.

Called parthenogenesis - from the Greek for "virgin creation" - it's a form of asexual reproduction that involves creating embryos from unfertilised eggs.

This allows certain creatures, from aphids to honey bees and zebra sharks to Komodo dragons, to have offspring without a male.

Only female stick insects are born through parthenogenesis. In Komodo dragons, only males are born through parthenogenesis.

Parthenogenesis predates sexual reproduction and was discovered when insects were kept in captivity without the presence of a male.

How widespread the practice is in the wild is debatable. There are some species of stick insects of which no male has been found.