A stingray in a North Carolina aquarium has mysteriously become pregnant, when its been the only stingray living with a few sharks in its aquarium. Some people think its a new sharkray hybrid, and some say that stingray jesus is coming, but how did this actually happen?
Image credit to Aquarium of the Pacific
To start, a stingray and a shark breeding would be almost impossible, as even if they are related they are split apart by three hundred million years of evolution. That would be like trying to get a dog and a cat to breed, except with more time between them. Stingray jesus is also not that plausible (although it’d be cool) but the reason how this stingray became pregnant is a process called parthenogenesis. In a nutshell, parthenogenesis is impregnating yourself. Stingrays and shark species can do this in captivity, and there has been some evidence that it has happened in the wild, although its much rarer. Charlotte, the stingray in the aquarium, is ready to give birth soon and is the first known stingray if its species, urobatis halleri, AKA the round stingray, to undergo parthenogenesis. Researchers don’t fully understand why it happens, but how it happens is that a polar body fuses with an egg to form an embryo. This is different from the cloning some lizards do. The stingray babies would be like they are highly inbred instead of perfect clones of their mother.
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