Charlotte, who has spent much of her life in a tank at the Aquarium and Shark Lab in Hendersonville in the Appalachian Mountains, is expected to give birth to up to four pups in the next two weeks. Experts have said it would have been impossible for her to have mated with one of the five small sharks that share her tank. Charlotte the round stingray, in an undated photo at the Aquarium and Shark Lab in Hendersonville (Aquarium and Shark Lab by Team ECCO/AP)The cause is parthenogenesis – a rare type of asexual reproduction in which offspring develop from unfertilised eggs which can occur in some insects, fish, amphibians, birds and reptiles, but not mammals. A female’s egg fuses with another cell, triggers cell division and leads to the creation of an embryo. But it’s happening in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains in rural North Carolina, hundreds of miles from the ocean.”

Source: The Times February 14, 2024 07:41 UTC