{"id":716,"date":"2024-06-02T12:00:33","date_gmt":"2024-06-02T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/02\/virgin-pregnant-stingray-charlotte-has-rare-disease-says-north-carolina-aquarium\/"},"modified":"2024-06-02T12:00:33","modified_gmt":"2024-06-02T12:00:33","slug":"virgin-pregnant-stingray-charlotte-has-rare-disease-says-north-carolina-aquarium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/02\/virgin-pregnant-stingray-charlotte-has-rare-disease-says-north-carolina-aquarium\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Virgin\u2019 pregnant stingray Charlotte has \u2018rare disease\u2019, says North Carolina aquarium"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A stingray whose \u201cvirgin\u201d pregnancy made global headlines has a rare reproductive disease, the aquarium housing her has said.<\/p>\n

In an update on the health of Charlotte the stingray, the Aquarium and Shark Lab in North Carolina <\/strong>said she had \u201cdeveloped a rare reproductive disease that has negatively impacted her reproductive system\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Charlotte captured international attention in February when the aquarium said she was carrying \u201cbetween three and four pups\u201d despite not encountering a male stingray for eight years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really strange and unique phenomenon,\u201d Brenda Ramer, its executive director, said at the time while livestreaming Charlotte\u2019s ultrasound.<\/p>\n

In the update posted on social media on Friday, the team said: \u201cMany are asking the name of the reproductive disease, but it is simply found under that text reproductive disease.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cWe are actively searching [for] more information ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

They added they found studies done on a different species of stingray but none on round rays, Charlotte\u2019s species.<\/p>\n

The aquarium closed on Saturday as the team \u201ccontinue to care for Charlotte, and consult her medical team\u201d.<\/p>\n

Shark theory dismissed<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before the discovery of the pregnancy, aquarium staff believed Charlotte had cancer after she began to \u201cswell\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, they soon discovered she was expecting.<\/p>\n

Thousands of people shared their theories on how the pregnancy had happened, with some saying she had been impregnated by a male shark living in the tank. Experts dismissed this, however.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe morphology of the male shark won\u2019t necessarily fit with the morphology of the female round stingray,\u201d Benjamin Perlman, from the biological sciences department at California State University, Long Beach, told NBC\u2019s Today.<\/p>\n

Ms Ramer told Today she now believes Charlotte became pregnant through parthenogenesis, where a female\u2019s egg becomes fertilised by her own cells.<\/p>\n

If this was the case, Charlotte would likely only be able to give birth to females as they would be her clones, according to the aquarium.<\/p>\n

\u2018Not impossible\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a social media post asking people to stop \u201cdiscounting\u201d the aquarium\u2019s discovery, Ms Ramer said: \u201cJust because something has not happened or has not been documented does not make it impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fish is between 12 and 16 years old and was adopted from a private home outside the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, eight years ago.<\/p>\n

Staff at the aquarium realised Charlotte was carrying eggs in December.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe definitely got much rounder,\u201d Kinsley Boyette, an assistant director of the Aquarium and Shark Lab, told Today.<\/p>\n

While humans carry their offspring in their stomachs, stingrays carry theirs in their backs. \u201cWe noticed that she couldn\u2019t completely bury herself underneath the sand, and that is what moved us to perform the ultrasound.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Charlotte\u2019s fans around the world are waiting to get an update on her health after months of speculation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A stingray whose \u201cvirgin\u201d pregnancy made global headlines has a rare reproductive disease, the aquarium…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":717,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}