Remember Charlotte, a stingray who mysteriously became pregnant in February?
It lives in an aquarium at the North Carolina Aquarium in the United States, with only a few baby sharks.
Charlotte, who had been alone for more than eight years, found out she was pregnant in February, when the news was very hot at the time, and a large number of people thought it was the shark's fault.
After some investigation, the scientists finally said that only parthenogenesis could do this.
As a result, Charlotte became the first case of parthenogenesis discovered by humans among stingrays, and it became an instant hit! The aquarium where it was located was also a global hit.
According to ultrasound, only 1 embryo was seen, not 4
In order to capture this traffic, the aquarium has promised to update Charlotte's news regularly every Wednesday and Saturday.
In the following time, melon-eating netizens all over the United States were paying attention to Charlotte's news, expecting it to give birth to a child as soon as possible, but Charlotte's child did not arrive as scheduled.
According to the aquarium's initial speculation, Charlotte will give birth to 4 babies in 2 weeks, but there is no movement, and later the aquarium announced that it is not sure when the baby will give birth, but it may be at any time.
However, two months later, Charlotte still hasn't changed. At the same time, the aquarium has not been updated on Charlotte for 2 weeks.
For this reason, it has attracted the dissatisfaction of netizens, as well as breeding all kinds of bad conjectures and conspiracy theories.
Some netizens think that something must be wrong with Charlotte, and some people think that the aquarium is lying!
Expert: Charlotte's child may have died, or stopped growing
Under normal circumstances, the gestation period of stingrays is 3-4 months, and the aquarium announced that the pregnancy time was in early February, and now it is April.
Experts say Charlotte's baby may never be born.
Parthenogenesis is a rare behavior in the stingray species, so he speculated that embryo survival would be low, meaning that the embryos in Charlotte's body could have died and then be absorbed by the mother.
Another possibility is diapause.
Stingrays are sensitive to the temperature of the environment, and in general, warm water temperatures are good for embryonic development and will speed up gestation, and colder water temperatures will slow down.
For Charlotte, the current environment and physical conditions may not be the most suitable, so she chose embryo diapause, and waited until all aspects were better, and the embryo continued to develop.
Diapause is common in animals, and this phenomenon exists in giant pandas.
In this case, the embryo will develop a little longer than normal.
Aquarium: Everything is normal, Charlotte gave birth just a little later
Probably due to pressure from the Internet, on April 8, the aquarium finally updated Charlotte's latest news, making it clear that Charlotte and her baby are fine and are expected to give birth at any time.
However, this news did not make the doubts disappear, and the people who eat melons became more confused.
Because in this public information, the latest details of Charlotte's inspection were not announced, and the aquarium did not find professionals to check Charlotte, but just said "lightly": It's all good.
The only time the aquarium shared a B-ultrasound was in March, according to which only 1 embryo was seen, not 4, and the details of the pregnancy have not been released since then.
The comments of netizens are also full of doubts:
"Having a qualified veterinarian examine it and publish the results will solve everything is clear that this is abusing and using Charlotte. ”
"When will I have a veterinarian actually examine it, who will the results be sent to, and can you share the results with us?"
"The last time I noticed it was in September 2023, Charlotte had a lump, and the aquarium has been monitoring it ever since, and it's still not alive, isn't that an aquarium lie?"
Of course, there are also people who are upset about the aquarium:
"Guys, it takes an average of 3-4 months for a stingray to give birth to a cub, and the aquarium found out she was pregnant in February. This means that she could be pregnant in early February or late January. Let's assume she was pregnant on January 20th, 3 months should be April 20th, 4 months is May 20th, and the time hasn't come yet!"
In short, almost all the melon-eating people in the United States are "urging" birth, but the result can only wait patiently!