An aquarium said in February that Charlotte, a round stingray, was pregnant, drawing international headlines. But a facility near Asheville, NC, now says the ray is sick, not pregnant. In this image from the April video update by Aquarium & Shark Lab by Team ECCO, the ray has a visible bulge on its back.
Shark Aquarium & Lab by Team ECCO / Screenshot by NPR
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Shark Aquarium & Lab by Team ECCO / Screenshot by NPR
This is called a miracle pregnancy, a rare case of parthenogenesis. But Charlotte, the round stingray that caused a great commotion at the aquarium in Hendersonville, NC, announced that she had become pregnant without the participation of the male ray, after all she was not pregnant.
“Charlotte has developed a rare reproductive disease that has a negative impact on the reproductive system,” said the Aquarium & Shark Lab by Team ECCO, citing a new lab report. “These findings are truly a sad and unexpected medical development.”
Aquarium founder Brenda Ramer released few details about the ray’s condition, but she confirmed to local TV station WLOS that Charlotte is not currently pregnant.
As he gave the update, Ramer also pushed back against the idea floated by online critics who suggested he was exploiting Charlotte’s possible pregnancy to draw attention to the aquarium.
“I can only tell you what we know for certain. I have never lied. This is not a scam,” Ramer told WLOS. “It’s not made of anything, but people do it. People have their own minds.”
“It’s a very strange story,” Warren Booth, who studies facultative parthenogenesis, a type of asexual reproduction, and is a professor of entomology at Virginia Tech, told NPR.
“The most unusual thing for me is that I remember seeing footage of the ultrasound (which was in Charlotte in February), and in the ultrasound you could see the embryo ray,” he said. It makes him wonder, he added, “if the woman aborted the developing embryo (s) and either consumed or tank mate consumed.”
As the months passed, the questions and concerns grew
The ray’s pregnancy is considered a unique example of asexual reproduction in the species. But then a month passed, and Charlotte reached the expected gestation period for a stingray (from 3 to 4 months).
The aquarium clarified the ray’s status shortly after a feature article from North Carolina news outlet The Assembly, which last week highlighted marine experts’ concerns about Charlotte’s health — and skepticism about Ramer’s suggestion that the ray could be absorbed by male sharks in her. tank – may breed shark-ray hybrids.
Charlotte quickly became a sensation
The story of the ray has attracted people far beyond Hendersonville in the mountains of western North Carolina: Shortly after the Aquarium announced her pregnancy, the city near Asheville began to see an influx of visitors and tourists. People drove for hours and fuel line out the door, hoping for a chance to see Charlotte. A cafe in the city named its latte in honor of the rays, and the city’s tourism website saw a huge jump in traffic, as NPR reported.
Charlotte’s new fans are waiting for news of her birth – but when it does come, the update is especially uplifting.
“In a weekly video post,” reports Blue Ridge Public Radio, Ramer and aquarium staff “provide updates and encourage the public to be patient, as there is no data on the gestational timeline.”
Why does the aquarium believe Charlotte is pregnant?
“The truth is that the vet told me,” Ramer said in early February, while performing a public ultrasound in Charlotte in a Facebook streaming video.
“We thought he had cancer when we saw the lump,” Ramer said he said, referring to Charlotte’s protruding back. But then, Ramer said, he sent a picture of the lump to Robert Jones, a shark and ray expert in Australia, and Beckah Campbell, a doctoral candidate in a shark research lab. at Arizona State University.
“Two people came back and said, ‘Oh no, it’s an egg,'” Ramer said.
In the February video, Ramer repeatedly pointed to the small screen for signs of Charlotte’s offspring. He explained how the tank was prepared to act as a nursery.
“There’s a baby,” Ramer said, pointing to the rough screen. “It looks like a tail, right there.”
Ray’s children may be “because they are born every minute,” he said.
But Ramer also acknowledged that his staff had just learned how to use the ultrasound machine.
“It’s like trying to read Chinese, isn’t it?” he said as he gestures on the screen, he is listening to the rays of the ‘cartilage’ ultrasound image difficult to decipher.
If anyone watching is also reading the ultrasound for life, he added, “Please come in.”
What about shark fin hybrids?
When he said Charlotte was pregnant, Ramer called the case parthenogenesis, an asexual method reproduction is seen in other ray species and documented in sharks, which are related to rays, Virginia Tech Booth noted.
“I was surprised that parthenogenesis attracted so much attention when it was reported,” he said, adding that people seem to be drawn to the story of an enigmatic vertebrate species that reproduces asexually (more common in invertebrates).
“The sad thing is that babies produced through parthenogenesis rarely last long,” Booth said. “Because parthenogens don’t have genetic diversity, and effectively inbreed, they’re very distressed.”
But Ramer also raised another explanation, which was discounted by experts. Ramer said Charlotte may have a hybrid of shark rays. Because when her tank didn’t have a male ray, but there was a male shark.
“One day we were like, oh my gosh, sharks bite when they’re mating,” Ramer said. “She has bite marks. There’s a potential she mated with one of the… sharks.”
“Anyway, we have a very unique juju here,” he said, adding that after the animal is born, “we’ll send all the DNA and test everything, just to see if a new species is created. here on Main Street.”
But creating a previously unknown marine hybrid in an Appalachian aquarium is unlikely, parthenogenesis expert Booth told NPR in the spring.
“It’s impossible for (rays and sharks) to hybridize,” Booth said. “Even though they’re both Elasmobranchs, I think they’re too far apart genetically to be considered.”
What is a museum called today?
The main priority is the health of the rays.
“We will work with, and be guided by, veterinarians and specialists to better understand this disease and treatment options for Charlotte,” the facility wrote on Facebook.
“While research on this disease is limited, we hope that Charlotte’s case and medical treatment will make a positive contribution to science and benefit other rays in the future,” added the aquarium.
In response to those who asked what disease was affected by the rays, the aquarium said that it was trying to learn more, answering, “it was only found in the reproduction disease of the text.”
The aquarium is not open Saturday, as it needs to focus on Charlotte’s health.
