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Charlotte is the TikTok generation’s Virgin Mary. Only she’s not human, and she’s carrying up to four messiahs.
For a brief moment, some wondered aloud whether Charlotte, a round stingray about the size of a serving platter, might have been knocked up by a shark. She has been in a tank in Hendersonville, North Carolina, separated from males of her species, for eight years. After her caretakers at the Aquarium and Shark Lab found out she was pregnant and expecting up to four pups, they speculated the bite marks they noticed on her might be a sign that she’d mated with one of the male white-spotted bamboo sharks in her tank.
“I saw this story pop up and my first thought was, ‘That didn’t happen,’” says Dave Ebert, an expert on sharks and rays at the California Academy of Sciences.
The more likely reason for Charlotte’s immaculate conception is something known as parthenogenesis, a process by which an organism essentially impregnates itself. While more common in plants and invertebrates, it does happen occasionally in elasmobranchs like Charlotte, especially in captivity.
While the whole ray-shark mating thing initially caught the eye of social media, it was the doing-it-on-her-own aspect of Charlotte’s story that really commanded attention. She’s due to have her pups any day now (Team Ecco, the educational organization that runs the Aquarium and Shark Lab, has been updating its Facebook page regularly), but the meme “Stingray Jesus” has already been born.
For obvious reasons, the internet loves this shit. It’s mystery, plus science, plus potentially horny sea creatures all in one story. Also, “Stingray Jesus” sounds cool, like a band on an episode of The Simpsons. In one TikTok, Kayla Gratzer, a restaurant manager in Eugene, Oregon, says Charlotte potentially mating with a shark has “queen energy.” Her video has more than 11 million views. Amanda, a TikTokker in Glasgow who posts under the handle @continentalbreakfast, noted, “My girl just spent her best years girl-bossin’ and pursuing her career until she decided the time was right.” Her post has more than 1.4 million views. Charlotte has inspired tattoo designs, and churchy-looking illustrations set to the song “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan. Everyone, it seems, is Team Charlotte.
Gratzer says she never expected “a silly video I filmed while scratching a $2 [lottery ticket] would gain so much traction,” but adds that she’s really grateful when the news gives people something lighthearted to discuss on TikTok: “It’s a dream.” Considering the other news of the past week, though, Charlotte’s story has a different timbre.
On Tuesday, Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled that destruction of a frozen embryo could make someone liable for wrongful death. Critics of the move claim it could have a chilling effect on people seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF), and the state’s largest hospital is already putting a hold on such treatments following the court’s decision. As another TikTok trend took off last week—dances to Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ’Em”—some on the platform used the song to champion reproductive rights. “Plan Bey,” in this case, means handing a pregnant person a credit card while Beyoncé sings, “This ain’t Texas”—a reference to the fact that the Lone Star State has enacted some of the strictest abortion laws on the books since the fall of Roe v. Wade.
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At a time when humans are trying to restrict other people’s reproductive decisions, a stingray getting pregnant on her own has real folk hero potential. Last year it was White Gladys, the orca who rammed rich people’s boats. This year, everyone wants to call Charlotte mother.
Technically speaking, scientists aren’t sure how parthenogenesis gets triggered, says Kevin Feldheim, a researcher at the Field Museum who studies rays and sharks, but they’re pretty confident that the egg gets fertilized by one of the three other cells, known as “polar bodies,” produced during the meiosis—or cell division—that makes eggs. Normally, polar bodies get absorbed by the female, but in the case of parthenogenesis, they don’t. Again, it’s rare, but not wholly uncommon, Feldheim says, “particularly when females are isolated from males in human care.”
Now Charlotte seems to be in the care of the entire internet. This week, as she missed some hoped-for due dates, social media became restless. “The world is waiting!” posted one TikTok user. Gratzer began daily updates. #Charlottethestingray and Stingray Jesus posts increased from a couple dozen to hundreds. People are watching with the short-breathed anticipation of a Maury Povich reveal. By the time you read this, the messiah(s) may be swimming, but the world will be far from saved.
