The Australian grasshopper that’s given up sex

Most species on Earth have two sexes – male and female – that combine and mix their genes when they reproduce. We are so accustomed to this state of affairs that the existence of an all-female species that doesn’t have sex, but instead reproduce by cloning, comes as quite a shock.

In our research just published in Science, our detailed study of a unique Australian animal finds that the traditional explanation for this state of affairs is likely wrong.