What Is Going On With This Virgin Mary Stingray?

News hit the internet that a North Carolina stingray named Charlotte (who does not live in Charlotte, NC) may have either conceived a child with no father or she was going to birth a Stingray/Shark hybrid. Suffice to say, I was not having the shark option, but a Virgin Mary Stingray is wild!

Charlotte has not shared a tank with any male stingrays for several years. Instead, she shared a tank with sharks. To make matters worse (for me, afraid of sharks), Charlotte was covered in shark bites, which is apparently a sign of mating for them. As if my fear of sharks could get any worse! Scientists have now revealed that it is impossible for Charlotte to have mated with the young male sharks in her tank and that it was probably a rare case of parthenogenesis.

“Pretty confident that this is parthenogenesis … and parthenogenesis literally translates into virgin birth or miracle birth,” Brenda Ramer, Founder and executive director of Team ECCO, said in a Facebook Live posted by the aquarium. “… It is very rare to happen.” 

A research scientist named Kady Lyons who works for an aquarium in Georgia spoke with the Associated Press about the situation and stated that it was impossible for a male shark to have mated with a female stingray. “We should set the record straight that there aren’t some shark-ray shenanigans happening here,” said Lyons.

So what we are seemingly dealing with is a stingray who is going to birth the sea Jesus and probably start the second wave of orca attacks? While this is all cool science, yay! It is also proof that the ocean is an absolutely terrifying place that we still learn new things about daily.

All I’m saying is I will not sleep well until I know this wasn’t a shark’s doing

While both Lyons and Ramer said that it wasn’t possible for a male shark to mate with a stingray, this parthenogenesis also seems pretty impossible. What I don’t love about the situation is that Ramer said that they found those shark bites on the stingray and that’s where my fear resides. What if all their talk of parthenogenesis is just to hide the shark/stingray hybrid?

Yes, this is all rooted in my very real fear of sharks, BUT Charlotte had not seen a male stingray in 8 years! She did, however, see male sharks. Men, you can’t trust them, no matter what species!

While yes, it’s probably parthenogenesis because these are scientists who have spent their lives studying these creatures, I am always going to have that voice in my head telling me that it could be the offspring of a shark and I don’t like that. I will never be free.

(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)