Stingray pregnancy shocks aquarium, shark lab in NC: 'We have no male'
FILE - Southern stingrays move slowly around the others before they are netted and given an ultrasound at Ripley's Aquarium in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014. (Janet Blackmon Morgan/Myrtle Beach Sun-News/Tribune News Service via Getty Ima
HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. - A stingray at the Aquarium and Shark Lab by Team ECCO in North Carolina has researchers excitedly scratching their heads.
The stingray in Hendersonville, North Carolina, is pregnant, but it’s not by a male stingray: the aquarium and outreach center doesn’t have any male stingrays.
Aquarium staff said the mystery began in September 2023, when Charlotte, a stingray, began to "swell."
"We documented multiple growths internally and initially thought she had a cancer," staff wrote.
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The aquarium vet later identified the growths as eggs, not cancer, much to the bewilderment of aquarium workers. The vet noted there have been a few cases of parthenogenesis – or asexual reproduction without fertilization – in stingrays.
FILE - A Bluespotted stingray (Taeniura Lymna) swims in the Aquarium of the Pacific complex in Long Beach, California, 08 November 2006. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty Images)
But aquarium staff had another thought: In July, a couple of months before Charlotte showed signs of pregnancy, the aquarium moved two male sharks into the tank.
"We started to notice bite marks on Charlotte, but saw other fish nipping at her, so we moved fish, but the biting continued," they wrote. "Then our light bulb went off – sharks bite to mate – did one of our young males mate with her?"
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Researchers say sharks and stingrays are closely related and cross-breeding has been documented.
Charlotte the stingray’s latest ultrasound shows two or three pups that could be delivered any minute. Their estimated due date was Feb. 9, but they hadn’t been born yet as of Saturday morning.
The aquarium will have to do a DNA test after they’re born to prove their theory, "unless we have visual cues about a mixed breed."