Turns out sea creatures can be a lot like a Maury or Jerry Springer episode. Charlotte, a stingray, lives at the Aquarium and Shark Lab in Hendersonville, North Carolina. She recently found herself in the family way but incredibly hasn’t been around any male stingrays.
There are a couple of different theories on who the daddy could be. One hypothesis is one of the sharks who also share her tank. Another one is that she did it all herself through a rare scientific process called parthenogenesis. This basically means her eggs develop on their own and create a clone. It’s pretty wild.
Brenda Ramer, founder of Team Ecco, the organization that runs the aquarium, is blown away by this situation. "People have written and said well, they can hold male sperm for years and I'm like, she's never been around a male, until we put those two little boys [sharks] in here," she explained to WLOS. She noticed bite marks on Charlotte, which could be a sign that either one of the sharks, Moe or Larry, and the stingray did the deed.
The other theory is just as bizarre but more likely. Brenda and her team have studied parthenogenesis in sharks. "With our bamboo shark up in the other corner, we've had experience with parthenogenesis with her 14 different times. We had one baby that lived 30 days outside of the egg," she explained. They have never personally seen it in stingrays and the last study took place 25 years ago.
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Charlotte is expected to give birth sometime in the next two weeks. She could have up to four pups. The team will perform DNA tests to see who, if anyone, is the father. "It's a once in a bluest of blue moons experience. And it's like, 'wow,'" Brenda gushed.
