Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Baby shark mysteriously born in aquarium tank housing only females
At an aquarium in Louisiana, USA, a baby shark hatched from an egg in a tank that contained two female sharks that had never had any contact with male sharks over three years. How did that happen? One possibility is parthenogenesis, a type of asexual reproduction where an embryo develops from an unfertilized egg. It occurs naturally in some plants, algae, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and animals, such as whiptail lizards, Komodo dragons, snakes, and sharks. The offspring are genetically identical to their mother. Parthenogenesis is the last method a species might use to produce offspring but it limits genetic diversity. Another possibility is that fertilization occurred long after mating, called delayed fertilization. In one case, a female shark was found to have kept sperm longer than 45 months. But why? Genetic testing will soon determine how this new baby shark was produced.
Read the article and learn how a baby shark was born in a female-only tank.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/03/science/shark-egg-hatches-no-males-intl-scli/index.html
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