Sharks, skates and rays, oh my!

Between mysterious stingray pregnancies and great news about eggcases, it's time to talk sharks, skates and rays!

Have you been following the unfolding drama around Charlotte the stingray's pregnancy in the USA?

Charlotte who lives in an aquarium in North Carolina hasn't shared her tank with another ray in over 7 years, but has managed to become pregnant through ‘parthenogenesis’, developing eggs on her own without fertilisation!

It may sound like she's cloned herself, but according to Kady Lyons, a research scientist at the Georgia Aquarium speaking to Scientific American, Charlotte's young won't be as genetically robust as a clone would be, as they are only getting some of the mother's genetics (check out the full article in Scientific American for all of the hard science).

Charlotte is the first round stingray known to have undergone parthenogenesis.

Stingrays are ovoviviparous, so her young will be hatched from eggs held in the body, unlike many other species of ray which lay eggs, known as oviparous.

Eggcase Hunting - Nursehound Eggcase ©Amy Pennington

We have our own rays, skates and sharks in the UK that lay eggs which you may have seen before, known as ‘Mermaid’s Purses’, and the Shark Trust record data from eggcase hunts being held all over the UK to track how well our rays, skates and sharks are breeding, and where they are breeding.

Some common ones you may see are Thornback Rays, nursehounds and Small-spotted catsharks. Thornback rays have big black eggcases, whereas nursehounds and catsharks have smaller beige coloured ones with curly tendrils on, designed to attach to sea grasses and keep the eggs safe.

3 people standing on a beach — Mike showing some enthusiastic eggcase hunters a particular species' eggcase.

Our coastal wellbeing partnership project, The Bay: A blueprint for recovery has bagged the top two spots on the Shark Trust's leaderboard for eggcase recordings in 2023, with the Wyre team recording a whopping 10,566 and the Barrow team recording 6,691!

The Bay are running an Easter eggcase hunt on Saturday 30th March from 2:00pm til 4:00pm at Rossall Point in Fleetwood and one up on Walney Island, Barrow if you'd like to help them keep their top spot for 2024, and the Fylde Sand Dunes Project are holding one on Wednesday 3^rd April at St Anne’s Beach.

Check out the event link below for our Fleetwood hunt, as well as more information about Thornback Rays and take a look at the annual eggcase hunt report from the Shark Trust.