Female anaconda virgin birth

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog page, I am a second year zoology student who is passionate about all things animal based and wanted to share my passion and knowledge with you all. If you want to find out any more about me then please click the about me button on my homepage. This is my first blog post so I am hoping I do not make any beginners mistakes and that it all goes well.
For my first post I would like to discuss a topic that has been circulating the news quite often lately regarding the virgin birth by a female anaconda at West Midlands Safari Park in the UK Click here for a link to the news article regarding it .
I find this to be a amazing demonstration of how nature can continue to amaze us. As mentioned in the article parthenogenesis or virgin birth occurs in other animal species including reptiles, a interesting concept to consider regarding this, is how isolated islands such as the Galapagos became populated by reptile species; all it would take is for a female reptile to wash up on the shore and via parthenogenesis form a entirely new colony of animals therefore, I think it would be of great interest to test DNA samples from reptile species found on isolated islands to see if there are any incidences where this may have occurred and the impact this has had on the reptile population in that area, as a possible downside for this method of starting a population is that all offspring will be related which will reduce genetic viability though, a point of note would be that if other reptiles of the same species made it to the island at other times the gene pool would be stronger and more able to support population growth.