Parthenogenesis
Do you know what parthenogenesis means? I didn’t until I read it in an article that was talking about how a second case of asexual reproduction in sharks was documented this week in Virginia Beach. It seems that a female blacktip shark, having been the only kind of her species in an aquarium, gave birth without benefit of having a mate. The article also mentions that last year a hammerhead shark in a zoo in Omaha also gave birth without benefit of mating.
I found this to be quite fascinating! I knew that there were some animals that could do that, but not sharks! Considering how many people are afraid of sharks, this could be very scary news to some people. I would not be surprised to see this story on the Colbert Report’s threat down sometime soon!