In an extremely rare phenomenon, a female shark that has not had any contact with males in more than two years is preparing to give birth to two babies, according to the Daily Mail. The shark, which is a white spotted bamboo, has been held at Great Yarmouth Sea Life Center since 2013 after being removed from the badly flooded sister center in Hunstanton. Since her rescue, she has been the only member of her species at the center, yet despite this she has produced two fertile eggs that are set to hatch in approximately nine months.
"They will be the first such births in the Sea Life network and we're excited and privileged to be expecting such a miraculous event," said Darren Gook, a marine biologist and shark expert.
If the births are a success, the event will mark the first time that it has occurred in the U.K., according to the Daily Express, and the babies will be an example of conception without a male, a phenomenon that has only been observed in sharks thus far. Furthermore, the discovery comes just days after the announcement of a second-generation virgin birth in Germany in the same bamboo shark species.
"The process is called 'parthenogenesis' and has long been known to occur in domestic chickens and some reptiles, but was not recorded in sharks until 2008," Gook said. "Females somehow manage to add an extra set of chromosomes to their eggs to produce offspring which are either clones or half-clones of themselves."
"It's been recorded in bonnethead, blacktip and zebra sharks as well as white spotted bamboos," he added. "It was assumed offspring born this way were infertile and it was an evolutionary dead end, but events in Germany have now disproved that."
One potential evolutionary benefit of asexual reproduction is its ability to ensure that survival of a species in the face of a drastic decrease in numbers that makes it difficult for males to locate females and vice versa, according to The Guardian.
