A STRINGRAY that made headlines over its mystery conception has had the cause of its pregnancy revealed.
Last week, the Aquarium & Shark Lab by Team Ecco, based in South Carolina, was rocked by the discovery that its stringray Charlotte was pregnant in a tank with no males.
The discovery baffled the aquarium team, who gave two rare but possible explanations as to how Charlotte became pregnant.
“We’re either going to have partho babies or we’re going to have some kind of a potential mixed breed, and we’re waiting for Jeff Goldblum to show up because we are Jurassic Park right now!," Brenda Ramer, executive director of Team Ecco, told ABC 13 News.
One theory was that Charlotte mated with one of the young male bamboo sharks that also inhabit her tank.
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Hybrids are possible between two genetically similar species, that have not long diverged.
We should set the record straight that there aren’t some shark-ray shenanigans happening here.
Kady Lyons, research scientist at the Georgia Aquarium
This would have resulted in the first scientifically documented stingray-shark hybrid.
However, a separate expert, Kady Lyons, whose graduate work focused on the species has now said it would have been 'impossible' for Charlotte the stingray.
This is due to the anatomical and size differences between Charlotte and the bamboo sharks.
Lyons, a research scientist at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, said Charlotte’s pregnancy is the only documented example she’s aware of for round stingrays.
“I’m not surprised, because nature finds a way of having this happen,” she said.
Lyons added: “We should set the record straight that there aren’t some shark-ray shenanigans happening here."
Instead, it turns out the second theory was true: Charlotte reproduced all on her own through a process called Parthenogenesis.
Parthenogenesis - how so-called "partho babies" are born - is natural form of asexual reproduction in which an embryo can grow from an unfertilised egg.
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“We don’t know why it happens,” Lyons added.
“Just that it’s kind of this really neat phenomenon that they seem to be able to do.”
The pregnancy had been deemed “a once-in-a-lifetime science mystery,” by the aquarium.
The process is incredibly rare, but has also been seen in other kids of sharks and rays while in human care.
These 'virgin births' are thought to be the key to protecting endangered species, and rowing them back from the edge of extinction.
