After saying Charlotte, a lone stingray, was pregnant, aquarium now says she's sick

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Charlotte the ray was touted as a case of asexual reproduction. Her aquarium now says she's actually sick with a rare disease — not pregnant. 'This is a very weird story,' an expert tells NPR.

Charlotte the ray was touted as a case of asexual reproduction. Her aquarium now says she's actually sick with a rare disease — not pregnant."This is a very weird story," an expert tells NPR.An aquarium said in February that Charlotte, a round stingray, was pregnant, drawing international headlines. But the facility near Asheville, N.C., now says the ray is sick, not pregnant.

"I can only tell you what we know for certain. I've never been a liar. This was not a scam," Ramer told WLOS."This was not anything made up, but people do that. People have their own thoughts.""The most unusual thing for me is that I recall seeing footage of an ultrasound , and on that ultrasound you could see an embryonic ray," he said.

"There's a baby," Ramer said as she pointed to the grainy screen."That looks like a tail, right there."But Ramer also acknowledged that her staff had only recently learned how to use the ultrasound machine. But Ramer also raised another possible explanation, one discounted by experts. Ramer said Charlotte might be bearing some kind of shark-ray hybrid. Because while her tank didn't have any male rays, it did have male sharks."One day we're kind of like, oh my gosh, sharks bite when they mate," Ramer said."She had bite marks. There's a potential that she mated with one of these … sharks.

 

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