A pregnant stingray has captured the minds and hearts of TikTokers, here's why.
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00:00 A pregnant stingray has captured the minds and hearts of TikTokers.
00:04 Here's why.
00:05 An aquarium in North Carolina almost broke the internet when they announced one of their
00:09 stingrays, Charlotte, was pregnant.
00:12 The shocking part of Charlotte's pregnancy is that there are no male stingrays in her
00:16 tank, only a few male sharks.
00:19 Once aquarium workers noticed the ray was pregnant, they also noticed a couple of small
00:23 shark bites on her back, a common occurrence in shark mating.
00:27 This initially led TikTokers to wonder if Charlotte was carrying the world's first shark-ray
00:32 hybrid.
00:33 However, scientists have confirmed that this is not the case.
00:37 Instead, Charlotte underwent a process called parthenogenesis, when a female can produce
00:41 an embryo on their own without fertilization.
00:45 Charlotte is the only known stingray to experience parthenogenesis, and the internet-famous ray
00:50 is set to give birth any day now.