In what could be the first recorded case of nonsexual reproduction in the Shark species, a baby was born to one of two moms in a smooth-hound shark tank, as captured in footage released by Newsflash.
The mysterious conception happened at the Acquario Cala Gonone in Sardinia, Italy, where the two female smooth-hound sharks have resided for the past decade without a single male shark present.
Italian media outlets reported that the pup, named “Ispera” by staff at the aquarium, is in fact a clone of its mom through parthenogenesis, according to experts, in which an embryo is fertilized by a polar cell, a byproduct of meiosis when germ cells divide to create either an egg or a sperm.
The polar cell in females, which contains a duplicate of an egg’s DNA, is superfluous in the presence of a male’s sperm. But during parthenogenesis, which has been observed in some sharks and other animals, scientists believe that the polar cell may be employed as supplemental DNA to the lonely ovum.
Researchers believe the pup, Ispera, is in fact a clone of its mom through parthenogenesis. The aquarium has sent DNA samples of each female in the tank to confirm the baby shark’s progenitor.
This form of asexual reproduction occurs rarely in females with little prospect of finding a mate due to low population density or, in Ispera’s case, no potential father at all.
Marine biologists at Cala Gonone have sent DNA samples to a laboratory to confirm their hypothesis.
Parthenogenesis is relatively common in invertebrates, such as worms, insects, some arachnids, and crustaceans, and is more rarely observed in vertebrates, including some amphibians, lizards, and fish.
Indeed, self-cloning births were confirmed in three shark species: the bonnethead, the blacktip shark, and the zebra shark. Ispera’s birth may well prompt a fourth species, the smooth-hound, to be added to the list.
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