Charlotte The Stingray: Immaculate Conception or Inaccurate Deception?
A "miracle pregnancy" picked up by national news brought huge business to a small-town aquarium, but months after the famous stingray was due, there are still no pups. Are we being scammed by a fish?
UPDATE 06/01/2024
Team ECCO (the org who owns Charlotte and the aquarium) posted this on May 30th (1 day after publication)
The statement still leaves some questions to be answered with regards to how long the aquarium has known this without disclosure and whether the claims of parthenogenesis are false, but it seems increasingly likely that Charlotte's pregnancy is non-viable. Thanks to user
for updating me in the comments.“We regret the delay of updates regarding Charlotte. This time was necessary to gather data and analyze lab and testing results. These reports were shared with our care team. The reports show that Charlotte has developed a rare reproductive disease that has negatively impacted her reproductive system. The findings are truly a sad and unexpected medical development. Our priority is to focus on Charlotte’s health and wellbeing. We will work with, and be guided by, veterinarians and specialists to better understand this disease and the treatment options for Charlotte. While the research of this disease is limited, we hope that Charlotte’s case and medical treatment will positively contribute to science and be of benefit to other rays in the future. We sincerely appreciate the incredible outpouring of love and support for Charlotte. Please respect Charlotte and her care team as we navigate this unexpected news and work to determine the best path forward. Updates will be given as we are able."
In February 2024, NPR ran a story that a female stingray had become pregnant without any contact with a male counterpart for years. Just in time for Valentines day, the story immediately piqued the interest of thousands across the nation, myself included. Almost four months later, we are still waiting with baited breath to see the pups and have them genetically tested, to determine their origin once and for all. As time goes on, our chances of solving this mystery dwindle.
Background:
Charlotte’s pregnancy was first noticed around September of 2023, when staff saw a bump on her underbelly. Thinking it was cancer, they performed an ultrasound, and consulted with aquariums in Arizona and Australia, who were the first to think it could be a pregnancy.
Pregnancies in Charlotte’s species of stingray typically only last 3-4 months, so given that the pregnancy was spotted in September, Charlotte was essentially due in February.
On the 6th of February, the Hendersonville aquarium made a social media announcement that was picked up by national news, confirming that the stingray was pregnant. Aquarium staff claim that she had not been in contact with a male ray for about 8 years. So how had she been impregnated? Let’s take a look at some of the possible explanations for Charlotte’s condition.
Immaculate Conception:
On the 8th of February, they held a livestream, where they put forth the idea that Charlotte was pregnant via a process known as parthenogenesis. This would be unique because although it has happened it other species of ray, Charlotte would be the first of her species where it happened.
There are multiple forms of the process, but if she *is* pregnant, it’s most likely via something called automixis. This means that her offspring will likely be very similar genetically to their mother, but are not likely to be “true clones”.
The Shark Angle:
They had recently introduced a juvenile white-spotted bamboo shark to the tank, and bite marks had appeared on Charlotte’s back indicating that the shark may have attempted to mate with her. Despite the evidence of shark on ray action, the likelihood of a shark-ray hybrid pregnancy seems lower to me than the parthenogenesis explanation, because of the genetic distance between sharks and rays as compared to other species capable of hybrids. Donkeys and Horses, who can hybridize to produce Mules, are separated by about 7-15 million years, whereas sharks and rays are separated by almost 300 million years. However, the hybrid and parthenogenesis explanations both explain why the pregnancy has dragged on for so long, as they can both cause problems in the viability of the offspring.
(Note: There are examples of hybrids like the Sturddlefish, which came from species separated by 184 million years, but both donor species in this case had not changed very much in that time. Important to remember that time from last ancestor is not a direct indicator of genetic distance, because selective pressure and therefore the “speed” of evolution can be variable.)
Taking all of this into account, my stance is that even if they got it on, it’s unlikely that this shark will have to dish out any child support to Charlotte’s pups.
Contamination/Co-mingling:
Initially, I was skeptical of the whole parthenogenesis story. I thought the most likely explanation was that a male stingray at some point had brief access to Charlotte’s tank, or that there was a holding tank shared by both rays during a cleaning or veterinary examination.
Slightly less likely but still plausible at first glance was that only water was shared, and that somehow male ray genetic material made it into Charlotte from the water she was swimming in.
However, I couldn’t find any record of the aquarium housing a male stingray, so unless she was transferred somewhere else I think I have to discard this explanation, although it best fit my priors.
The abnormal length of the pregnancy also works against this theory, because the weird conception circumstances makes failed or abnormally long pregnancies much likelier, as compared to the base rate of long/failed pregnancies under normal conditions.
Storage:
Is it possible Charlotte could have stored genetic material from an earlier mating all this time, and her body is only now going into pregnancy mode?
Stingrays have been documented to store sperm in the past, but the claimed 8 years would be 4x longer than the next longest storage time I could find, which was two years at the Sea Life London Aquarium. The two female rays in that case gave birth to seven healthy pups.
Like the contamination theory though, this doesn’t explain the abnormal length of the pregnancy.
Hoax:
Obviously my inner cynic screams hoax louder every day that we do not see the pups, but this response is rooted in vibes rather than evidence. There are many questions about the aquarium’s actions and motivations, but certainly no smoking gun.
Q1: Why did it take them months to announce that Charlotte was pregnant? They knew she was pregnant in September but did not announce it until February, when she should have been imminently due. Perhaps they thought that by waiting they could insulate from the risk or they wanted to hit the valentines day run-up with the story.
Q2: Why has the pregnancy gone on so long and why haven’t we heard about the health of the pups? We’ve been getting lots of updates about Charlotte’s health, but I haven’t heard anything about whether the pups have heartbeats or any sort of ultrasound with higher definition than the initial announcement. People in the comments clamor for confirmation from a medical/veterinary expert, but teamECCO seems to want to maintain their monopoly on Charlotte-info.
Q3: Cui Bono? Brenda Ramer, who is the director of teamECCO (the charity which runs the aquarium), was the first to post about Charlotte, where she suggested the ray’s pregnancy was the result of mating with the white spotted bamboo shark. As we went over before, this is very unlikely and most with knowledge of marine animals would be able to tell. Was this her first attempt to garner media attention? Maybe it was an attempt to drive business to the aquarium itself or even to the town of Hendersonville at large. Once the people started coming to see Charlotte, it would be hard to turn off the tap.
Q4: Will we ever know? With the way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if Charlotte never makes it to the end of her pregnancy and we never see the pups. The aquarium estimates her to be 12-16 years old, and her species of ray typically only lives to be 14. This makes her a potential double threat of geriatric parthenogenetic pregnancy.
I think a full hoax is unlikely, but it’s definitely possible the aquarium knows more than they are telling us. For example, I wouldn’t be surprised if the pups are already known to be non-viable or dead within the womb, and the aquarium is just milking the situation for as long as possible. This might not even be the prerogative of the aquarium, it’s totally possible they want to tell us but are being pressured by local officials to keep the tourists coming. Even if this were all true, I think it only qualifies the situation as a partial hoax, because it seems clear that *something* is happening with Charlotte as she is visibly larger and the ultrasounds do show what appear to be pups.
False Positive:
Could Charlotte herself be adaptively scamming the aquarium staff out of food?
This theory is popular with Charlotte fans on social media, but I think this is pretty unlikely, but it may be that Charlotte’s ultrasounds were misinterpreted as a pregnancy while actually being something else like cancer or a cyst, and the aquarium is leaning into it because they feel they are in too deep to turn back.
What do you think?
When I first heard the story back in February, it sounded a little too good to be true, so I created a betting market to poll the people about where they think the pregnancy could have come from. You can create an account for free to weigh in with your own opinions and even add options (The failed to carry option was added by another user). As far as I know, answers resolve without mutual exclusivity, so multiple options can be correct! I plan to resolve the market once the pups are born and can be confirmed to be parthenogenetic in origin or not. I am invested into the parthenogenesis option pretty heavily, but I’m excited to see what my readers think!
As you can see, people (and largely myself) generally bought in to the story of parthenogenesis. However, as time has gone on and no birth has occurred, I’ve become more open to the idea that the aquarium owners may have embellished or leaned into the holy birth hypothesis as a way to drive business to their small town.
Thank you for reading.
-Connor, OfAllTrades.
There seems to have been a very recent update by the aquarium staff, saying that Charlotte has developed a rare reproductive disease: https://eu.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2024/05/31/is-charlotte-the-stingray-still-pregnant-the-latest-rare-disease/73919459007/