After two weeks of incubation, Reptile Discovery Center keepers candled the eggs; that is, they held them up to a light. The candling process revealed veins—a tell-tale that the eggs were fertile and the embryos were developing. After looking through our Asian water dragon’s records, I immediately suspected parthenogenesis. Before reaching sexual maturity, she was housed either by herself or with other females.

Earlier this past winter, the newborn snakes were unexpectedly discovered by Aquarium staff in the rainforest exhibit. Biologists discovered in January that 8-year-old Anna, a 10-foot adult anaconda weighing about 30 pounds, was still in the process of delivering more young, most of which were stillborn, which is quite common in parthenogenesis among vertebrate species. Initially, three babies survived, but one died of within a couple of days. Since then, the other two juveniles have thrived.

Close to a waterfall, however, expedition leader Teresa Camacho Badani saw a frog jump.

“When I pulled it out, I saw an orange belly and suddenly realized I had in my hands the long-awaited Sehuencas water frog,” Badani, who works for the Museo de Historia Natural Alcide d’Orbigny in Cochabamba, tells Carrington. “My first reaction was to yell ‘I found one!’ and the team came running over to help me and pull the frog to safety. It was an incredible feeling.”

"I went out and the lake had overflowed," he says, and realised the toads, who nested around its edge, were fleeing the rising waters.

"Thousands of toads were all trying to find somewhere to go," he says. "And then I saw Monty our local python with a bunch of hitchhikers on his back."