Social media erupts with memes about Charlotte the virgin stingray as North Carolina staff says she’s due to give birth ‘any day now’
The internet is full of complaints and confusion that Charlotte the Stingray has yet to give birth.
Memes are not scarce; some people are posting on social media that Charlotte “may just be chubby” as they comment on her so-called “immaculate conception.”
One social media user feels like he’s being ‘lit by a stingray’, while others are wondering if images of Charlotte have been manipulated to make her appear pregnant.
Someone posted a photo of Sophia Petrillo from the TV show The Golden Girls and said, “Imagine that. Sicily, 1912′ to describe how long she monitors Charlotte’s pregnancy.
According to the Aquarium & Shark Lab in Hendersonville, North Carolina, where Charlotte is being held, the stingray could appear “any day.”
Charlotte the stingray is at the Aquarium & Shark Lab in Hendersonville, North Carolina
People on social media are expressing their annoyance at waiting for Charlotte to give birth
The Aquarium & Shark Lab in Hendersonville, North Carolina announced that Charlotte the stingray became pregnant through ‘immaculate conception’
Social media users are confused about why Charlotte’s pregnancy is taking so long
In February, the aquarium speculated that Charlotte had been impregnated by a white-spotted bamboo shark that lived in the same aquarium.
However, experts said it was impossible that the shark and stingray could have mated, as their size difference would contradict much of the theory and their DNA would not have matched anatomically.
“We need to make it clear that there are no shark ray scandals happening here,” said Kady Lyons, a research scientist at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. AP News.
Social media users feel like they are being manipulated by the stingray as the aquarium has not provided a date for her birth
People are now joking that Charlotte’s pregnancy might not be real
Comments and jokes about Charlotte’s pregnancy are circulating online
Still, people following the aquarium’s updates on Charlotte seem to be growing restless, as one person posted the meme of Rose from The Titanic thinking about the stingray and saying, “It’s been 84 years.”
Meanwhile, another person compared the lack of information about Charlotte’s due date to Princess Kate following the royal family’s disappearance from public view.
A separate post claimed that Charlotte isn’t pregnant at all, and another complained: ‘We’re about to be watched by a stingray!’
Experts have said a stingray having a baby without a male partner is not unheard of for some mammals, including sharks, that have lived in isolation for long periods of time.
The process is called parthenogenesis, which is a scientific term for virgin birth in which the stingray produces a clone of itself.
Dr. Christopher Lowe, professor of marine biology and director of the Shark Lab at California State University, said the aquarium likely doesn’t know the exact due date because it’s difficult to know when the stingray was conceived.
Stingrays typically have a gestation period of three to four months.
But people aren’t buying it, and some say they don’t believe she “was ever pregnant, because it STILL hasn’t produced any Jesus babies.”
People are doubting Charlotte’s pregnancy because the aquarium hasn’t announced a due date
If a stingray is isolated for an extended period of time, it can replicate or clone itself to produce offspring without a mate
Charlotte was likely conceived via parthenogenesis, also known as a virgin birth
People are comparing the lack of information about Charlotte’s due date to Princess Kate following the royal family’s disappearance from public view
It’s “probably because they don’t know exactly when she started developing an embryo, and we don’t know if parthenogenesis requires a longer gestation period,” Lowe told Dailymail.com.
He added: ‘They can become pregnant in two ways without seeing them mate with a male’, by storing sperm for a year or by parthenogenesis – which is the most likely scenario.
“It turns out that parthenogenesis is more common in sharks and rays than we previously thought, so this is the most likely explanation,” Lowe said.
The gestation period of a stingray typically lasts three to four months
Users have used X to joke about the absurdity of the initial claims that Charlotte had been impregnated by a shark.
One person posted: ‘Listen to me… What if Charlotte the Stingray is pregnant with a human baby daddy?’
Another person posted a meme of Maury – a popular talk show host in the 1990s – with the caption: “The results are in: Shark, you ARE NOT the father!”
There was speculation that Charlotte had been impregnated by a shark
Experts say it is not possible for a shark to impregnate a stingray
Immaculate conception versus a shark baby is the ongoing question online
Charlotte has become an anomaly around the world as people wait for her puppies to be born
However, the official reason why Charlotte became pregnant will only be officially confirmed after a DNA test is performed on the puppies.
The aquarium said Charlotte is pregnant with up to four pups and released a video Ultrasound of Charlotte on March 9, but some followers were confused, saying there appeared to be only one pup, not four.
“I thought they initially saw possibly four babies on the previous ultrasound?” the person asked, adding, “Could it be possible that some didn’t make it or something in her womb?”
‘So we went from 3/4 puppies to 1?!’ another person asked.
Mercedes Burns, an assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Maryland, told Dailymail.com that she expects the stingray to give birth in about a month.