In 1985 an American biologist working in New Zealand, Curtis Lively, studied a particular snail that reproduces both sexually and asexually.

FORBES: Those Resourceful Bugs

It allows the plants in question to reproduce asexually, thus cloning themselves and creating seeds which are genetically identical to their parent.

ECONOMIST: Terminator genes

Until recently it was thought that stripe rust reproduces asexually.

ECONOMIST: Wheat rust and world farming