WASHINGTON — An aquarium having a pregnant stingray doesn't seem all that surprising on the surface. But what's making waves about this story is that the pregnancy occurred in a tank with no male stingrays.
When TEAM ECCO's aquarium and shark lab in Hendersonville, North Carolina, saw swelling in their female stingray named Charlotte, they first thought it might be cancer, according to local media.
But after taking an ultrasound and consulting experts they confirmed Charlotte was pregnant with up to 4 pups, Brenda Ramer, Founder & Executive Director of Team ECCO, explained to Fox News Digital.
Ramer explained to the Associated Press they believe Charlotte reproduced through a process called parthenogenesis. That's when the female develops an egg, then the cells in the egg split and create a clone of the mother.
"And parthenogenesis literally translates into virgin birth or miracle birth. And what happens is, the female will develop the eggs, and then the eggs will develop embryos. While they are still within the mother's belly," Ramer described.
She told WLOS they've seen that happen more than a dozen times with one of their sharks, but it doesn't happen much with stingrays in captivity. Back in 2018, an aquarium in Australia shared the story of its female stingray giving birth despite not having contact with a male for more than nine years.
Meanwhile, Charlotte hasn't shared a tank of water with a male of her species in at least eight years.
During a Feb. 8 Facebook Live, Ramer floated another, more peculiar, possibility: That Charlotte could have mated with one of the two young male sharks that were added to the same tank back in July.
She said bite marks spotted on Charlotte pointed to that theory.
“Oh my gosh, sharks bite when they mate…There’s a potential that she mated with one of these young male sharks,” Ramer recalled in the Facebook video.
An expert on the stingrays told the Associated Press it would have been impossible for Charlotte to have mated with one of the five small sharks that share her tank.
Kady Lyons, a research scientist at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, who is not involved with the North Carolina aquarium, said Charlotte’s pregnancy is the only documented example of parthenogenesis she’s aware of for her species, round stingrays.
As for the suggestion that Charlotte could have been impregnated by a shark, Lyons said that’s impossible. Besides being different sizes, the animals wouldn’t match up anatomically. Neither would their DNA.
“We should set the record straight that there aren’t some shark-ray shenanigans happening here,” said Lyons, whose graduate work focused on the species.
The aquarium said they're working to set up a live stream so fans can watch Charlotte. The aquarium said Monday that Charlotte is due within the next two weeks. Once she delivers the pups they plan to send the DNA off for testing to confirm whether she mated with a shark or if it was parthenogenesis.
The aquarium has been closed for its winter season, but reopens to the public on Thursday.
