This fish shouldn’t exist — the weird genetics of clonal vertebrates
Nature Podcast
podcast@nature.com
4.5 • 893 Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A study reveals how the asexual Amazon molly defies evolutionary expectations — plus, evidence of what may be powering superluminous supernovae.
In this episode:
00:46 Unravelling the genetics of an asexual fish that should be extinct
Research Article: Ricemeyer et al.
News and Views: How an all-female fish species defies evolutionary expectations
10:19 Research Highlights
Nature: Jam-packed star system is most compact of its kind ever found
Nature: Peanut-processing microbes ward off dangerous allergic shock
11:31 How a superluminous supernova got so bright
Research Article : Farah et al.
News and Views: Ultra-bright supernova wobbles like a spinning top
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Nature. |
| 0:02.0 | In an experiment. |
| 0:05.0 | Why is blight so far? |
| 0:08.0 | Like, it sounds so simple. |
| 0:09.0 | They had no idea. |
| 0:11.0 | But now the data's... |
| 0:12.0 | I find this not only refreshing, but at some level astounding. |
| 0:19.0 | Nature. |
| 0:25.4 | Welcome back to the nature podcast. |
| 0:29.3 | This week, the mystery of the fish that shouldn't exist. |
| 0:33.6 | And how superluminous supernova gets so bright. |
| 0:35.2 | I'm Charmini Bundell. |
| 0:36.5 | And I'm Benjamin Thompson. |
| 0:53.6 | When it comes to reproduction, things fall into two camps, sexual or asexual. And while both ultimately have the same aim, namely producing offspring, |
| 0:58.8 | they go about it in different ways. Invertebrates, asexual reproduction, where an offspring is |
| 1:06.6 | genetically identical to its parent, is rare, but it does exist. For example, in an unassuming, |
| 1:13.6 | but rather unusual fish about the size of a thumb. These fish live in waters between Mexico and |
| 1:20.8 | Texas, but they're called the Amazon Molly. So they're all females. That's why they're called |
| 1:26.7 | the Amazon Mollies. They don't live in the Amazon Basin. |
| 1:29.3 | They're called that because of the Amazon Warriors from Greek mythology, which were in all-female |
| 1:35.3 | society of warriors. |
| 1:36.3 | So yeah, the species is all female, and they give live birth to clones of themselves. |
... |
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