Officials at a North Carolina aquarium are anxiously awaiting the birth of sting ray pups – and trying to determine how, exactly, Charlotte got pregnant.
The ray lives at the Aquarium & Shark Lab by Team ECCO in Hendersonville, and they discovered she was expecting about three months ago. It was a bit of a surprise because there are no male rays in her tank.

Aquarium & Shark Lab by Team ECCO
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Biologists say it could have happened in one of two ways, by parthogenesis -- asexual reproduction in which a female produces an embryo without a male present to fertilize the egg – or by mating with one of two young white-spot bamboo sharks that were moved into Charlotte's tank last July.
They won’t know for certain until the pups are born.