How did Charlotte the stingray conceive her pups?

Science•Sex and love•Animals

480

Ṁ5.2K

Ṁ970

May 4

ALL

93%

Parthenogenesis (Immaculate Conception)

0.6%

Shark

0.5%

Hoax

0.2%

Male stingray (either by contaminated water or co-mingling)

0.8%

She was never pregnant in the first place (mistaken diagnosis)

She was pregnant, but failed to carry to term

0.8%

Other

Look up Charlotte the stingray, market extended to the 8th of March in the case that we do not see a birth by then, on the theory that the proof is in the pups

Get Ṁ200 play money

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Extended again as we have not seen any stingray pups yet

@ConnorTabarrok still no birth yet, will check back in a week I guess

bought Ṁ20 Parthenogenesis (Imm... NO

@ConnorTabarrok still nothing. And I'm still of the opinion she may not be pregnant, but I don't think "hoax" captures that scenario.

@AlQuinn I agree. I've added a few other options

bought Ṁ50 She was pregnant, bu... YES

@AlQuinn if she was never pregnant ant the aquarium knew that and kept advertising about it, I would resolve to hoax. If she was never pregnant but the aquarium wasn't scamming, I'll probably go to N/A.

@Mad I can resolve to multiple right? I think theres a good chance it was parthenogenesis and that the pups failed to fully develop as a result.

@ConnorTabarrok I don't know anything about manifold 😂

Market extended to the 8th of March. Will not resolve until we see the pups and know if they are charlotte "clones" (from parthenogenesis) or if a male ray somehow mated with charlotte (maybe by storing sperm for 8 years or otherwise)

Considering we've seen (other types of) stingrays go through parthenogenesis before, seems like a better bet than sudden cross-clade interbreeding.

I think there's another (unlikely) possibility that Charlotte is a hermaphrodite and hasn't been identified as such. Hermaphroditism has been seen in stringrays and self-fertilization is not unheard of.

FYI: The Immaculate Conception is not the same as the Virgin Birth. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception states that Mary the mother of Jesus was conceived without the taint of original sin.

@StephenClark for the purposes of this market, no stingray cum = immaculate

@StephenClark It's fallen into colloquial usage. Yes, the immaculate conception was the conception of Mary, not Jesus, but that's not what most people think of.

@ConnorTabarrok best no-context Manifold comment

@StephenClark I wonder why Christians decided to retcon the immaculate conception of Mary but stopped there. Like, if it would be bad for the mother of Jesus to be conceived in sin, why is it okay if her own mother Anne was conceived in sin? Her grandma, and so on and so forth all the way until Eve? I mean, it's not like induction was unheard of in the 19th century when the retconning was made official.