Thelytoky comes from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 thely, meaning "female", and tokos, meaning "birth". Thelytokous parthenogenesis

Parthenogenesis

Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction found in females, where growth and development of embryos occur without fertilization by a male...

 is a type of parthenogenesis in which females are produced from unfertilized eggs. It is rare in the animal kingdom

Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...

 and has only been reported in about 1500 species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

. It is more common in invertebrates, like arthropods, but can also occur in vertebrates, like some whiptail lizards

Cnemidophorus

Cnemidophorus is a genus of lizards which belong to the family of Teiidae, which are commonly referred to as whiptail lizards or racerunners. Note that the nomenclature for this genus has recently been re-examined by T. W. Reeder et al. in 2002...

. Thelytoky can occur by a number of different mechanisms each of which has a different impact on the level of homozygosity

Zygosity

Zygosity refers to the similarity of alleles for a trait in an organism. If both alleles are the same, the organism is homozygous for the trait. If both alleles are different, the organism is heterozygous for that trait...

. It can be induced in Hymenoptera

Hymenoptera

Hymenoptera is one of the largest orders of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees and ants. There are over 130,000 recognized species, with many more remaining to be described. The name refers to the heavy wings of the insects, and is derived from the Ancient Greek ὑμήν : membrane and...

 by the bacteria Wolbachia

Wolbachia

Wolbachia is a genus of bacteria which infects arthropod species, including a high proportion of insects , as well as some nematodes. It is one of the world's most common parasitic microbes and is possibly the most common reproductive parasite in the biosphere...

and Cardinium, and has also been described in several groups of Hymenoptera, including Cynipidae, Tenthredinidae

Tenthredinidae

The Tenthredinidae is the largest family of sawflies, with well over 6000 species worldwide. Larvae are typically herbivores and feed on the foliage of trees and shrubs, with occasional exceptions that are leaf miners, stem borers, or gall makers. The larvae of externally feeding species resemble...

, Aphelinidae

Aphelinidae

Aphelinidae is a moderate-sized family of tiny parasitic wasps, with some 1160 described species in some 35 genera. These minute insects are challenging to study as they deteriorate rapidly after death unless extreme care is taken , making identification of most museum specimens difficult...

, Ichneumonidae

Ichneumonidae

Ichneumonidae is a family within the insect order Hymenoptera. Insects in this family are commonly called ichneumon wasps. Less exact terms are ichneumon flies , or scorpion wasps due to the extreme lengthening and curving of the abdomen...

, Apidae

Apidae

The Apidae are a large family of bees, comprising the common honey bees, stingless bees , carpenter bees, orchid bees, cuckoo bees, bumblebees, and various other less well-known groups...

 and Formicidae.

Hymenoptera

Hymenoptera

Hymenoptera is one of the largest orders of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees and ants. There are over 130,000 recognized species, with many more remaining to be described. The name refers to the heavy wings of the insects, and is derived from the Ancient Greek ὑμήν : membrane and...

 (ant

Ant

Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...

s, bee

Bee

Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...

s and wasp

Wasp

The term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their...

s) usually reproduce by arrhenotokous parthenogenesis

Arrhenotoky

Arrhenotoky or arrhenotokous parthenogenesis is a form of parthenogenesis in which unfertilized eggs develop into haploid males.This form is observed in some marine invertebrates, beetles, scorpions, mites, bees, etc....

. They have the haplodiploid sex-determination system, and usually unfertilized eggs develop into haploid males, and fertilized eggs develop into diploid females. In thelytoky, however, female workers or queens are produced by laying worker bee

Laying worker bee

A laying worker bee is a worker bee that lays unfertilized eggs usually in the absence of a queen bee. Only drones develop from the eggs of laying worker bees . A beehive cannot survive with only a laying worker bee....

s when diploidy is restored in their eggs by the fusion of two meiotic

Meiosis

Meiosis is a special type of cell division necessary for sexual reproduction. The cells produced by meiosis are gametes or spores. The animals' gametes are called sperm and egg cells....

 products.. These laying workers are therefore producing unfertilized diploid eggs (with the full complement of 32 chromosomes). Thelytoky occurs in the Cape bee, Apis mellifera capensis

Apis mellifera capensis

Apis mellifera capensis, the Cape honey bee or Cape bee is a southern South African subspecies of the Western honey bee.They are unique among honey bee subspecies because workers can lay diploid, female eggs, by means of thelytoky, while workers of other subspecies can only lay haploid, male eggs...

, a strain of honey bee

Honey bee

Honey bees are a subset of bees in the genus Apis, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of perennial, colonial nests out of wax. Honey bees are the only extant members of the tribe Apini, all in the genus Apis...

, and has been found in other strains at very low frequency. The diploid embryo that develops from the egg can develop into a worker bee or a queen bee depending on the amount of royal jelly

Royal jelly

Royal jelly is a honey bee secretion that is used in the nutrition of larvae, as well as adult queens. It is secreted from the glands in the hypopharynx of worker bees, and fed to all larvae in the colony....

the larva receives.