A python snake is over 6 meters long, and is considered the longest species of snake. It turns out that in 2012, a female python laid 61 eggs without the presence of a male. She is currently being held at the Louisville, Kentucky zoo. The case was published in July in the scientific journal Linnean Society which confirmed the report based on snake skin samples. It was the first case of parthenogenesis discovered among snakes.
It is fascinating to find out what Chazal said about the snake nearly two millennia ago in the gemara:
“How long does a snake conceive and give birth? (Rabbi Yehoshua) told him: seven years.” (Tractate Bechorot 8)
Many were surprised at this claim. Many said that it is impossible for the female to give birth after such a long period without a male.
But it turns out that the snake is an atypical animal concerning conception. The Hebrew-language book “Plants and Animals of the Land of Israel” (Volume 5, Page 30) says about snakes: “In many species of reptiles, the females have a pouch which stores seed, thereby enabling fertilization after many months and even years have passed from when the two snakes copulated. By a female of one coluber species, they found seed which was six years old!”
Rabbi Yaakov Segal writes about this: “This feature was discovered in some types of snakes (colubers, royal pythons, garden snakes, etc.) … and zoologists have been investigating it in recent years … we will certainly soon find out many more new discoveries about snakes. And it seems that Chazal were referring to the maximum time that a female can wait until she conceives, as Rashi discusses there: “How long can she hold back conception in her insides.”
This phenomenon of the female restraining herself from becoming pregnant within a window of seven years for reasons of “personal convenience” until she is ready in her own good time, during which time she cannot conceive from other snakes — is termed by the Bible a curse.
Chazal bring this biological fact to express the magnitude of the curse which the snake received. Truthfully, there is no greater curse to the snake species than the fact that they might only give birth once every seven years. How did the Jewish sages know this amazing fact that all the wise men over the ages did not know until recently? Food for thought.
