- We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again — life is weird.
We just wrote a whole list of places that shouldn’t support life but still do. But if that wasn’t enough proof for you that life finds a way, here’s another (and even more bizarre) story.
A North Carolina aquarium recently found out that a female stingray living in their tanks is pregnant. That’s usually happy news at an animal preserve, but there’s something decidedly fishy about these babies.
You see, the stingray — named Charlotte — has no mate.
Charlotte has most likely never even seen a male member of her own species. As such, these babies couldn’t possibly be the result of usual ray-on-ray interaction.
So, how did Charlotte get pregnant? Has she been sneaking out on secret Fish Tinder dates at night?
According to the aquarium, there are two possible explanations for the miraculous pregnancy. Charlotte has either gotten it on with a shark she shares her tank with — or she’s knocked herself up.
We’re not sure which of these options is less weird.
Not Cancer, Fortunately
Charlotte the Stingray lives in a water tank at the Team ECCO Aquarium and Shark Lab in Hendersonville, North Carolina. She generally spends her days swimming about, burying herself in the sand, being flat…
You know, stingray stuff.
Last fall, however, Charlotte started failing at the latter duty. The flat fish began to get decidedly less flat.
Naturally, that was a cause of concern for the aquarium staff. Stingrays don’t usually expand spontaneously, so they figured something might be seriously wrong with Charlotte.
Their worries only intensified when the bulge on Charlotte’s abdomen kept growing.
“We have been doing ultrasound on our ray, Charlotte, since September, when she began to ‘swell,’” Branda Ramer, Team ECCO founder and executive director, told WLOS on February 1.
The ultrasound pictures showed several lumps growing inside Charlotte. They confirmed the aquarium team’s worst fears — the stingray must have cancer.
Yet, they wanted to be sure, so they sent the pictures to Dr. Rob Jones, the aquarium’s veterinarian. He had both good and confusing news for Team ECCO.
The good news was that the lumps weren’t cancer tumors. The confusing news was that they were eggs.
Somehow, the single lady Charlotte was pregnant.
Two Options, Both Strange
How on earth could Charlotte — who according to the aquarium staff has never as much as brushed fins with a hunky stingray — have gotten herself pregnant. Well, there are two possibilities, each of which is fairly outlandish.
The first option is that Charlotte has mated with either Larry or Moe, the two whitespotted bamboo sharks she shares her tank with. It sounds ludicrous and no one has witnessed any interspecies loving, but there are some indicators that this may have happened.
You see, some sharks tend to bite the target of their affections during mating — call them love bites, if you will. And sure enough, the aquarium staff had noticed multiple bite marks on the edges of Charlotte’s fins.
“We started to notice bite marks on Charlotte, but saw other fish nipping at her, so we moved fish, but the biting continued,” explained Ramer.
Here’s a bit of fish trivia: sharks and stingrays are pretty closely related. We’re not sure if it’s ever happened but in theory, at least, they could produce a bizarre hybrid baby.
The other option is that Charlotte has impregnated herself. Shark and ray females are capable of parthenogenesis, which is developing eggs without fertilization that results in genetic clones of the mother.
It’s fairly common in sharks, and Team ECCO’s female bamboo shark has knocked herself up 14 times. In stingrays, however, parthenogenesis is exceedingly rare.
“It’s a once in a bluest of blue moons experience,” summarized Ramer.
About to Pop
The good news is that Team ECCO will soon have a solution to the mystery. All they have to do is run a genetic test on Charlotte’s pups (as shark and ray babies are called) once she gives birth.
And that could happen any day now.
Stingray gestation typically lasts for about 3-4 months. That means Charlotte’s babies are just about to swim out of the oven.
And they indeed do come out swimming. Although stingray pups develop inside eggs, some species (including Charlotte’s) retain the eggs inside the mother and give live birth.
For their part, Team ECCO hopes Charlotte keeps the babies in until February 15, when the aquarium opens to the public after renovations. But even if she gives birth before that, Ramer is prepared for many visitors to come gawk at the miracle babies.
“We’re kind of expecting a deluge, which is great and that’s fine. We want people to come and see [Charlotte] and talk to us about her,” Ramer said.
Charlotte’s not-quite-immaculate conception is expected to result in up to four pups. If they survive, the aquarium hopes to keep the unconventional family together — although they will need a tank twice the size of Charlotte’s current one.