Stingray In NC Aquarium Awaits Miracle Birth

A stingray at the Aquarium and Shark Lab by Team ECCO in Hendersonville, North Carolina is expecting, though we’re not sure exactly how or even with what – there are no males in her tank. 

Last September the aquarium staff noticed the female named Charlotte was swelling. At first they thought she might have cancer, but ultrasound detected something else: eggs.

There are two possibilities here. Charlotte could be about to reproduce via parthenogenesis, which requires no paternal input. It’s a neat trick performed by some other invertebrates such as snakes or sharks, but is exceedingly rare in stingrays. “It’s a once in a bluest of blue moons experience,” aquarium's founder and executive director, Brenda Ramer tells ABC13 News.

The other possibility: perhaps the eggs were fertilized by a shark. Two young males – 1-year-old white spot bamboo sharks named Larry and Moe – were placed in Charlotte’s tank in July. Shortly after, Charlotte got some bite marks on the edges of her fins, which could be evidence of a shark shagging.

“We're either going to have partho babies,” Ramer says, “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!”

Partho babies have got our attention before, but so far only with sharks. The Henderson staff believes Charlotte, whose gestation period is about to conclude, is carrying at least four pups. If the miracle babies are born alive, the aquarium will keep the strange family together, but in a tank at least twice as large as Charlotte’s current digs.

When the pups emerge, tests will prove conclusively whence they came, either through ultra-rare parthenogenesis or via the shenanigans of Larry and/or Moe. Team ECCO is setting up a videocam on the tank and will have a live stream available when the time comes.

Photo credit: Aquarium & Shark Lab by Team ECCO via Facebook