In what seems to be a scientific first, a stingray at a North Carolina aquarium may have gotten pregnant without a companion. Charlotte, a California round stingray who lives at the Aquarium and Shark Lab in Hendersonville, is carrying three to four pups—with no father in sight.
Even though scientists say they’ve almost definitely figured out how she got pregnant, the world has been mesmerized by the possibility of nature throwing us a total curveball. For days, the aquarium has posted footage of her on its Instagram with captions telling fans there are “still no pups” yet. Even the American comedy show Saturday Night Live did a segment about Charlotte over the weekend, with an actor dressed up as a stingray to answer questions about who the dad is. In a strange way, Charlotte’s mystery has united us and fed our sense of wonder about the natural world.
While Charlotte shares her tank with two white-spotted bamboo sharks and many other fish, there hasn’t been a male ray in the tank for at least eight years. Some have speculated whether she may have cross-bred with a shark, but experts say sharks and rays have incompatible DNA and it’s almost certainly a “virgin birth” instead.
“They wouldn’t be able to produce viable pups even if they could mate,” says stingray expert Dr Joni Pini-Fitzsimmons, a research fellow at Charles Darwin University in Australia’s Northern Territory, told BBC Wildlife. “We can be sure that Charlotte’s sharky tank mates aren’t the fathers and she won’t be pupping any shark-ray hybrids.”
