Any day now: Pregnant stingray with no mate draws attention, crowds from near and far

HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — A stingray's mysterious pregnancy continues to draw major attention from across the globe to a small aquarium in North Carolina.

The Aquarium and Shark Lab by Team ECCO in downtown Hendersonville has an expectant stingray named Charlotte in their care.

Staff said there have been no male stingrays in the tank with Charlotte, so it was quite the surprise when they discovered she was pregnant. There are two ways Charlotte could have gotten pregnant -- a rare process called parthenogenesis, in which the eggs develop on their own without fertilization and create a clone of the mother, or, staff theorize Charlotte could have mated with one of the young sharks that were added to the tank in July.

Ever since the aquarium shared the news in early February, Charlotte's mysterious pregnancy has captured the attention and curiosity of people worldwide.

The aquarium and shark lab on Main Street in Hendersonville reopened to the public on Thursday, Feb. 15, and was flooded with curious onlookers through the weekend.

“It has gone beyond and above anything we could have even begun to imagine," Brenda Ramer, founder and executive director of Team ECCO, described the national attention. "We figured it would spark interest, but we thought it would spark locally. But then as the news spreads we have come to find out that, potentially, this is the first occurrence of parthenogenesis in a California round ray that’s been documented in captivity.”

She said the aquarium averages around 70 to 75 visitors a day when they are open.

On Saturday, they stayed open late — allowing all 280 people to come in and see Charlotte, who Ramer described as full of life.

Charlotte is expected to give birth any day now.