A North Carolina aquarium has announced a scientific abnormality in the hands of a pregnant stingray that apparently has no mate.
Team ECCO’s Aquarium and Shark Lab, based in Hendersonville, is home to a female stingray named Charlotte. Initially, staff were worried that the stingray had cancer.
Brenda Lamar, the aquarium’s founder and executive director, told Fox News Digital that she was confused when she noticed Charlotte’s swelling.
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“We always knew she was a woman,” Lamar laughed. “The difference is very visible. Sharks and rays are the easiest fish to tell apart.”
According to Team ECCO’s Aquarium & Shark Research Institute, Charlotte, a round ray, became pregnant without a male ray nearby. (Aquarium & Shark Lab by Team ECCO)
“We noticed she was starting to swell, for lack of a better word,” she explained. “So we decided to have her do her ultrasound and we saw what we thought was a lump or growth inside her.”
To the aquarium staff’s relief, the lump was not a tumor at all. They were puppies even though Charlotte had no recent contact with a male stingray.
“We sent [the ultrasound] When I asked other people to look at it, they said, “Look, this is an egg.” And we thought, ‘Okay, this is great,'” Lamar recalled.
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The aquarium, North Carolina’s first inland aquarium, is in touch with experts in Australia and the United Kingdom about the strangeness.
Aquarium staff spoke to marine biologists around the world about the stingray’s miracle pregnancy. (Aquarium & Shark Lab by Team ECCO)
The hoped-for stingray may have reproduced by a method called parthenogenesis.
“The cells inside the egg divide and create a clone of the mother,” Lamar explained. “Our little shark lay down [around] Over the past eight years, she has produced 900 eggs, 14 of which grew into embryos without fertilization. ”
“It’s a difficult concept to even think about, but I always tell people to remember the first Jurassic Park movie. They did the exact same thing with the dinosaurs.”
The aquarium’s founder floated the idea that a male shark in the tank impregnated the stingray, but admitted that “actually that possibility is not very strong.”
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Brenda Lamar said Charlotte seemed very comfortable and healthy during her pregnancy. (Aquarium & Shark Lab by Team ECCO)
“We had noticed some bite marks on her and we thought it was a fish… and then it hit us. We noticed that these two young We put a male shark in there and we didn’t think it would survive. But, well, what if we mate with her?” Lamar said.
“Really anything is possible when it comes to animals,” Kinsley Boyette, the aquarium’s deputy director, told FOX News Digital.
For now, the aquarium believes Charlotte is likely reproducing asexually.
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“I’m not saying it’s not a completely certain possibility. But until we do DNA testing… we really can’t say anything with 100% certainty.”
Lamar said the community’s response has been supportive and the soon-to-be mom is doing well.
Aquarium staff were worried that Charlotte might have cancer when she started to swell. (Aquarium & Shark Lab by Team ECCO)
“She seems comfortable and her demeanor hasn’t changed at all,” the executive director said. “She’s healthy, she’s eating and swimming. She’s allowing us to interact with her.”
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“No matter what the outcome is [is]…We hope Charlotte made it out alive, but so did the babies. ”
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