There are several theories surrounding Leonie's sudden unusual behavior. "She had been mating successfully for several years, and there was nothing much published about such large animals switching reproductive strategy so quickly." "It was definitely a surprise," said Hamish Tristram, a senior aquarist with Reef HQ. Genetic analysis of Leonie's hatchlings displayed elevated homozygosity, meaning more genes are identical, and less diversity pointing to the likelihood that they had been produced asexually, rather than sexually through sperm storage. This has been seen in a handful of sharks, but none that had mated previously." Sharks have been known to store sperm from male sharks for extended periods of time." "One was sperm storage, which has been documented in several occasions. "There were two possible explanations for Leonie's eggs hatching," said Dudgeon. This time, three of Leonie's eggs and two of Lolly's eggs emerged into live hatchlings. The next year, Leonie and Lolly both laid eggs. Staff at the aquarium noticed that some of Leonie's eggs contained embryos and attempted to incubate them out of curiosity, although none hatched. "It's much like a chicken - they lay eggs whether they are fertilized or not, if the conditions are good," she told CNN. If all goes well, the small stripy zebra shark babies will hatch in April and May, and will be moved to the shark nursery, right next to the hatchling aquarium.Dudgeon pointed out that sharks simply laying eggs without a male present is not unusual. Luckily, hoping is free, so we have crossed all our fingers and the keepers at Den Blå Planet have done everything they can to provide an environment that will promote healthy growth and development. Never count your chickens…Īs the old saying goes, we are not promised a zebra shark until the egg hatches, so we remain cautiously optimistic. The stripes are so distinctive that they were named based on that, and luckily there is no bad blood between leopards and zebras. There is however, method in the madness, as little baby zebra sharks are born with beautiful black and white stripes that disappear and change as they grow older. Leopard sharks are an entirely different species of sharks who are also brown with black spots, but the spots are larger and more leopard like…confused yet? In fact, many of our guests refer to it as a “leopard shark” when they see it, and although the logic is sound, seeing as they are a brownish/grey with black spots, they are in fact named after a zebra. What makes the zebra shark one of a kind, is that it is neither striped, nor black and white. Nature likes to recycle its patterns, so it’s not uncommon to see tiger stripes or giraffe spots on aquatic animals. See also: Den Blå Planet, National Aquarium Denmark just became one zebra shark richer I’m seeing spots! Or is it stripes? It is common practice for some ovoviviparous sharks like sand tiger sharks and porbeagles, to eat their siblings while developing inside their mother, and that’s why they only give birth to a few sharks at a time…and you thought your family feud was bad! This means that they fertilize, develop and hatch within the mother, and are then birthed as fully formed sharks. The whale sharks eggs are much larger than a zebra sharks, but they are a member of the ovoviviparous subspecies. These eggs are the largest of the oviparous sharks, a subspecies of sharks that reproduce using eggs. Within the capsule there is a small shark foetus, that will double in size before being ready to make its escape. After mating, a female zebra shark produces an egg capsule that measures up to 17 cm.
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