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Rare Virgin Shark Births Reported in Detroit

Posted by timothy on from the signs-of-the-something-or-other dept.

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.'"

3 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Too Much Hoopla by jeramybsmith · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.

    --
    Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
  2. Busted... damn! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Note to self:

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

  3. an idea by pretzel_logic · · Score: 5, Funny

    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

    --

    pretzel_logic