- North Carolina aquatic center has pregnant female stingray
- However, there were no male rays in her tank.
- Staff believe the ray, Charlotte, may have been impregnated by a male shark that was placed in her tank in July.
A stingray at a North Carolina aquarium is expecting babies and staff believe she may have been impregnated by a shark.
Charlotte, the stingray at an aquarium and shark laboratory in Hendersonville, could give birth at any time, but the pregnancy was a shock to everyone because there were no male rays in her tank.
Team ECCO Aquarium and Shark Lab noticed swelling in Charlotte in September and thought it might be cancer.
After performing ultrasounds on the stingray, the team realized that she was pregnant with several babies.
‘We’ve been doing ultrasounds on our stingray, Charlotte, since September when she started swelling. We documented multiple ‘growths’ internally and initially thought she had cancer,” staff member Ramer said on Feb. 1.
A stingray at a North Carolina aquarium is expecting babies and staff believe she may have been impregnated by a shark.
Charlotte, the ray at a shark aquarium and laboratory in Hendersonville, could give birth at any time, but the pregnancy was a shock to everyone because there were no male rays in her tank.
Team ECCO Aquarium and Shark Lab noticed swelling in Charlotte in September and thought it might be cancer. After performing ultrasounds on the stingray, the team realized that she was pregnant with several babies.
There are two possible explanations for the mysterious impregnation: the first of which is a process known as “parthenogenesis.”
This is when the eggs develop on their own without fertilization and create a clone of the mother.
“I contacted Dr. Rob Jones, the aquarium veterinarian, and he identified the growths as eggs,” Ramer said. ‘We don’t have any male rays. He said there have been few cases of parthenogenesis in rays.
The other explanation for Charlotte’s pregnancy is crazy.
Staff believe the female stingray may have been impregnated by one of the yearling male sharks they placed in her tank in mid-July.
‘In mid-July 2023, we moved two 1-year-old male white-spotted bamboo (sharks) to that tank. “We couldn’t find anything definitive about its maturation rate, so we didn’t think there would be any problems,” Ramer said.
“We started noticing bite marks on Charlotte, but we saw other fish nibbling on her, so we moved the fish, but the bites continued.”
Bite marks are an indicator of mating in sharks because large fish are known to bite during the mating process, another employee explained, adding that Charlotte had several bite marks on the edges of her fins.
Charlotte is carrying up to four puppies and was expected to give birth around February 9, although the birth has not occurred until today (February 10).
The cubs will be DNA tested once they are born and aquarium staff will be able to determine if they are a mixed breed or clones of their mother.
The gestation period for a manta ray is usually three to four months.
The creatures are flattened fish, which are closely related to sharks. They all belong to a group of fish called elasmobranchs.
There are two possible explanations for the mysterious impregnation: the first of which is a process known as “parthenogenesis.” This is when the eggs develop on their own without fertilization and create a clone of the mother.
The other explanation for Charlotte’s pregnancy is crazy. Staff believe the female ray may have been impregnated by one of the yearling male sharks they placed in her tank in mid-July.
Stingrays are unique because they do not have bones in their body, but rather their skeleton is made up of flexible cartilage.
They are ovoviviparous, which means that the young are born from eggs found inside the body.
Many manta rays like to live alone and only come together for breeding and migration purposes.