Attention all Incels! A microscopic beetle mite proves animals can survive thousands of years without having sex

I saw the headline while browsing Twitter this afternoon: “This animal has survived for centuries without having sex.”

I thought, that’ll show those incels who are absolutely furious to be virgins at 14 or 44.

Or maybe not. The animal in question is the type of animal normally known as “eww, bugs.” As Euronews.com explained:

A tiny beetle mite species, just one-fifth of a millimetre in size, has helped scientists prove that animals can survive for a very long time without having sex.

But there’s a bit of a complication. In news that will certainly cause much consternation in the incel world, these forever-celibate creatures are all girls — proving that female bugs can survive indefinitely without riding the bug carousel with an assortment of insect Chads. Told you so, incels!

So how do these tiny bugs, classified as Oppiella nova, manage to reproduce without any males around? Scientists were baffled.

The long term survival of animal species without sexual reproduction was thought to be practically impossible – until now.

What scientists at the Universities of Cologne and Göttingen discovered is that the Oppiella nova beetle mite has survived for thousands – maybe even millions – of years without having sex.

This animal can clone itself instead of reproducing.

Say what? Isn’t that, like, against the laws of evolution?

Normally, there is a big evolutionary advantage to having two parents. In animals with two sets of chromosomes, including humans, sex makes sure that our genetics get ‘mixed’ providing diversity. …

But this ‘mixing’ doesn’t happen in organisms that reproduce asexually.

Ok, so how do they manage to finesse this?

Despite producing what are essentially clones of themselves, they are still able to introduce genetic variation and adapt to their environments in a different way.

The two copies of their genetic information accumulate separate mutations, evolving completely independently. This is something called the Meselon effect and is only found in species that only reproduce asexually.

While the assorted misogynists I write about for this blog dream about aritificial wombs they think will make women obsolete, these Oppiella nova sisters are doing it for themselves.

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