Deep in the heart of North Carolina, there’s a pregnant stingray about to give birth.
Meet Charlotte, pictured below, a round stingray who lives in a 2,200-gallon tank at the Aquarium and Shark Lab by Team ECCO in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
She first showed signs of pregnancy months ago. But she doesn’t share a tank with a male ray and has probably never done so. Instead, she shares her space with two young male sharks.
Is it a miracle? An interspecies love affair?
Neither: It’s parthenogenesis.
Kady Lyons, a research scientist in Georgia, told the Associated Press that Charlotte’s pregnancy is the first time she’s heard of a round stingray exhibiting the phenomenon.
”I’m not surprised, because nature finds a way of having this happen,” said Lyons, who isn’t affiliated with the Aquarium and Shark Lab.
In parthenogenesis, female animals become pregnant without the genetic contribution of a male. It’s a complex process, but basically, the female uses her own egg and some spare cells, called polar cells, to spur reproduction. It can happen with certain fish, birds or lizards. (Or … dinosaurs? Think: Jeff Goldblum’s character’s assertion that “life finds a way” in “Jurassic Park.”)