Virgin shark got pregnant in Virginia aquarium

DEEP BLUE MYSTERY: A blacktip shark, Carcharhinus limbatus, in an undated photo.

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Washington: Scientists using DNA testing have confirmed the second-known instance of "virgin birth" in a shark — a female Atlantic blacktip shark named Tidbit that produced a baby without a male shark.

The shark came to the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach not long after being born in the wild and lived there for eight years with no males of the same species, said Beth Firchau, the aquarium's curator of fishes.

The 5-foot shark died after being removed from the tank for a veterinary examination, and a subsequent necropsy revealed that Tidbit was carrying a fully developed shark pup nearly ready to be born, Firchau said.

Demian Chapman, a shark scientist with the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University in New York state, performed DNA testing that showed the pup had no father. Virgin birth such as this is known as parthenogenesis.

A year ago, Chapman used genetic testing to confirm that a hammerhead shark at a zoo in Omaha gave birth to a pup in 2002, also after parthenogenesis.

"It tells us that the original case we documented last year was not some fluke of nature. This is something that might be more common than we think it is, and widespread among sharks," Chapman said in a telephone interview.