Second Confirmed Shark "Virgin Birth"

As a follow up to this post from last year, scientists have confirmed the second-ever case of a 'virgin birth' in a shark, further confirming that female sharks can reproduce without mating and that many female sharks may have this incredible capacity. The scientists have proven through DNA testing that the offspring of a female blacktip shark named 'Tidbit' contained no genetic material from a father.

The phenomenon of 'virgin birth' occurs when a baby is conceived without male sperm having first fertilized the female's eggs, and has been proven in some bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. In the type of parthenogenesis seen in these sharks, known as automictic parthenogenesis, the newly forming pup acquires one set of chromosomes when the mother's chromosomes split during egg development.

But instead of uniting with similarly split chromosomes from sperm, as occurs in sexual reproduction, the mother's set is paired with a copy of itself. This results in offspring of reduced genetic diversity who may be at a disadvantage for surviving in the wild.



Source article here.