Officials at a North Carolina aquarium are anxiously awaiting the birth of sting ray pups – and trying to determine how, exactly, Charlotte got pregnant without a male ray in her tank.
The ray lives at the Aquarium & Shark Lab in Hendersonville, and they discovered she was expecting about three months ago.
Dr. Dan Dombrowski is the Chief Veterinarian at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
"One of the things that sometimes we see surprisingly are females that live alone and haven't had contact with males of their species that somehow start to develop viable embryos and have offspring, babies, through a process we called parthenogenesis,” he said.
Parthenogenesis is the asexual reproduction in which a female produces an embryo without a male present to fertilize the egg.
Biologists at the aquarium have also suggested Charlotte may have gotten pregnant by mating with one of two young white-spot bamboo sharks that were moved into her tank last July, but Dombrowski says that’s much less likely.
“Very, very unlikely I would say," he said, "Most likely not the case in this scenario."
However, he said if the sharks did attempt to mate with Charlotte, their efforts may have played a role.
“Sometimes parthenogenesis may be influenced or stimulated or that process started by activities from even males of other species with females that go on to sort of lead to the parthenogenesis,” Dombrowski explained.
The pups are expected to be born any day.
If you want to learn more about parthenogenesis, the species it’s been seen in, and how it happens listen to Annette Weston-Riggs’ full interview with Dr. Dombrowski by clicking on the blue “listen” button above.
