'Miraculous' Pregnancy of Stingray at NC Lab; No Male Stingrays Present

Photo byMyrtle Beach Sun News via Getty Images

With some fascinating new additions, North Carolina Hendersonville's aquarium and shark lab is anticipating a remarkable birth any day. Charlotte is a pregnant stingray at the Aquarium and Shark Lab by Team ECCO in downtown Hendersonville.

However, because this pregnancy is unlike any other, the team believed that Charlotte's bulge, which they first saw in September, might be cancer.

Why? Considering that there were no male stingrays in the tank, they reasoned that she could not have gotten pregnant. There are still two possibilities for Charlotte to become pregnant, though, and the team won't be able to determine which one until the pups are delivered.

Photo byPaul Souders via Getty Images

One is a highly uncommon process known as parthenogenesis, in which the eggs grow without fertilization and produce a mother clone on their own.

Since September, when our daughter Charlotte started to "swell," we have been doing ultrasounds on her. We recorded several 'growths' within and initially believed she had cancer," Ramer wrote in an email on February 1. "I reached out to Dr. Rob Jones, the aquarium vet, and he identified the growths as eggs. We have no male ray. He said there have been few cases of parthenogenesis in rays."

The founder of the aquarium believes that the second reason for Charlotte's pregnancy is more "Jurassic Park" related: Charlotte may have mated with one of the young sharks who were brought to the tank in July.

"We introduced two 1-year-old white spot bamboo male sharks into that tank in mid-July 2023. We didn't believe there would be a problem because we couldn't locate any solid information regarding their maturation rate," Ramer stated. "We started to notice bite marks on Charlotte, but saw other fish nipping at her, so we moved fish, but the biting continued."

Brenda said that bite marks are a sign of mating behavior in sharks and Charlotte had multiple bites on the edges of her fins.

According to Ramer, Charlotte could give birth at any time and is expecting up to four pups. After birth, the puppies will probably undergo DNA testing to see if they are truly clones of their mother or a mixed breed. According to Ramer, they hope Charlotte will give birth around Friday, February 9, the day of the full moon. All developments, according to her, will be shared on Team ECCO's Facebook page and website.

In stingrays, the gestation period typically lasts three to four months.

The only hands-on marine study center and ocean education lab in the WNC mountains and the Upstate of South Carolina is the Aquarium and Shark Lab by Team ECCO in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

The team runs North Carolina's first inland aquarium in addition to teaching outreach focused on the ocean (6,500 participants in 2023). The aquarium and lab welcomed over 11,000 visitors in 2023.

The team has submitted the curriculum outline for the first Kids Camp on Exuma in 2022 and has experience in shark tagging with Beneath the Waves.

Source:

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