Hotel Shark Breaks “Virgin Birth” Records
Talk about determination— stuck in an aquarium in the middle of a luxury hotel in the desert all alone, a female zebra shark has still managed to conceive offpring….for the fourth time in a row.
The shark’s fourth consecutive “virgin birth” was first noticed in 2007 and is is a record according to scientists.
"We were actually moving the eggs, and one of the guys felt something move inside the egg, and we checked the eggs with light, and there were babies inside," recalled David Robinson, the assistant aquarium operations manager at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai.
The leopard shark, named Zebedee, is beating the odds by reproducing via parthenogenesis where eggs are developing even without male sperm. Marine biologists believe this method of reproduction may be found in wild shark populations when getting through tough times.
It is little surprise that these amazing animals have lasted hundreds of millions of years!
