Rare Virgin Shark Births Reported in Detroit

randomErr writes "Voice of America reported that 'Officials at Detroit's Belle Isle Aquarium say a shark there recently produced three babies in an event they are calling virgin births. The mother, a white spotted bamboo shark has lived at the aquarium without any male counterparts for the past six years.'"

Comments

Hmm...

[chainrust]

Looking it up on Google, the only other recorded instance of a virgin shark birth happened in a Omaha zoo.
I wasn't able to find the species of shark in Detroit, but the one in Omaha was a bonnethead.
Makes for some very odd news...

Re:Hmm...

[Gibbys Box of Trix]

It says in the write up it was a white spotted bamboo shark. These 600,000+ noobs don't even read the story these days before K-whoring, let alone the article.

HTH.

Reason to worry?

[Kopretinka]

a shark there recently produced three babies in an event they are calling virgin births

And were those little sharks or human babies? Now I'd start worrying if it's the latter...

it's a frickin miracle

[pizza_milkshake]

i say abandon the whole Jesus-worshipping thing... nail those shark babies to a wooden cross and someone'll worship them. not me though. nope.

Too Much Hoopla

[jeramybsmith]

Shark reproduction is still pretty much voodoo to the scientific community. Take the white shark, we know zilch about them. Only after we attached some gps units to some white sharks did we discover that they like to take little trips down into the abyss now and then (and we we have no clue why they do it or what they eat while down there).

All in all, I suspect there is nothing miraculous about reproduction. My guess is either the shark has weird 6 year gestation or that the shark was a builtin survival mechanism where if it does not produce offspring for a long time it essentially clones itself by reproducing from its own sole DNA.

Soo.....

[stienman]

So... There's hope for single geeks everywhere to perpetuate the species?

Remember - just because you can doesn't mean you should. :-)

-Adam

Busted... damn!

[Anonymous Coward]

Note to self:

Stop sneaking into aquariums and having sexual intercourse with the sharks.

we must exterminate them immediately

[Lepruhkawn]

Since the shark is obviously cloning itself, I predict that it takes about 5 minutes for the Bush administration to declare war on the species.

There actually could be some very interesting spinoffs to shark-targeting torpedos.

JAWSUS CHRIST!!!!

[seanmeister]

That's amazing! I just hope they don't go out and eat all of us merry non-believers.

Stored sperm

[crow]

In some species, the female will store sperm after mating for future fertilization. Perhaps something like that is at work here? It should be easy enough to do a DNA test to see if the offspring have a father.

In other news...

[GreyWolf3000]

Richard Simmons, popular television motivational speaker for the obese (and a rampant homosexual), miraculously gave birth to triplets last Thursday. Authorities are still coming to consensus as to the biological classification of the "lil' rascals," as Simmons calls them, but they have agreed definitively that they are not human. "The babies have large amounts of hair both on their heads and on their chests, and yet their testosterone level is actually near zero," said one doctor, present at the birth, who declined to disclose his name. "This, among other things, does not support any traits of humans."

"It's about time my New Year's Resolution came true," said the 54 year old. "Is it too much to ask to have a few bundles of sunshine of my own?" As he said this, he picked up infant Rupert, the first of the babies who left the alleged "birth canal," and began to sing "You Are my Sunshine" softly.

Not all are pleased about this, however. Many in the nearby community have expressed outrage at the newest three members of the community. "I don't want my newborn going to school with them 5 years from now. Either they move, or I do," said a local resident. Others fear the sudden emergence of yet three more to bear the Simmons name. "That guy was pregnant? Christ, we already have like four Baldwins, and we know how bad that is. Well, this will definately be worse," said another in outrage.

Though a controversial topic with much uncertainty and doubt with respect to the outcome, the fact that this was indeed a conception without sexual contact is universally accepted.

It does happen

[damiangerous]

in some other higher species. Most notably and frequently, in turkeys.

Shark sperms can swim for long distances

[savage_panda]

It's a well known fact that sperms are great swimmers. I think it just swam the distance from the male shark to the lady shark. I was born the same way. My mom had me while my dad was in vietnam. And "little" me had to swim across the ocean like the salmon swimming home. Oddly enough thou, I'm not a great swimmer.

an idea

[pretzel_logic]

This is a milestone. Slashdot is the first to have proof to answer the oldest question.

What came first; the chicken or the egg?

now we can all say, the hermaphrodite chicken!!, lol

Did they have a visitor

[Lars T.]

named Troy McClure?