Virgin stingray pregnancy may have a delightfully unusual scientific explanation
The pregnancy of a stingray living in a tank without male rays has stirred a sudden interest in parthenogenesis, a scientific term that essentially means virgin birth.
The surprise pregnancy of Charlotte, a stingray living in a tank without any male rays, has captivated people across the world and stirred a sudden interest in parthenogenesis, a scientific term that essentially means virgin birth.
Charlotte, a round stingray, at the Aquarium and Shark Lab by Team ECCO in Hendersonville, NC.Aquarium and Shark Lab by Team ECCO / APSpeculation about the stingray has racked up more than 12 million views for a TikToker. The talk show host Jimmy Kimmel weighed in on Charlotte’s apparent immaculate conception with a segment about the ray, which resides at the Aquarium & Shark Lab, in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
While a virgin birth sounds like a rare event, experts on parthenogenesis said Charlotte has performed a miracle of life far more common than most people understand. Dozens of species — zebra sharks, California condors and Komodo dragons — can reproduce asexually through parthenogenesis. Scientists have only started to unravel the mysteries of this phenomenon, and a better understanding of the process could help them harness its power for conservation.
“There’s nothing unnatural about asexual reproduction,” said Mercedes Burns, a biologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who studies sexual conflict in animals. “Invertebrates or fishes are doing amazing things in their lifetimes in order to reproduce successfully.”
The frenzy over Charlotte’s baby bump began earlier this month, when the Aquarium & Shark Lab announced that the stingray was expecting, suggesting on social media that she’d been either impregnated by a shark that shares her cage or that she had developed pups through parthenogenesis.
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