What stuck in Maynard Smith’s craw is that the bdelloids as a whole reproduce only asexually—every last one of them, evidently descended from a bdelloid common ancestor that must have lived long enough ago to beget 18 genera and 360 species. Remains in amber suggest that this male-spurning matriarch lived at least 40 million years ago, very probably more. The bdelloids are a highly successful group of animals, astonishingly numerous and a dominant part of the freshwater faunas of the world. Not a single male has ever been found.*
