In the study, "Haploid facultative parthenogenesis in sunflower sexual reproduction," published in Nature, researchers examined how sunflowers can form haploid seeds without fertilization.

One possibility is that this represents a case of "parthenogenesis", a rare form of asexual reproduction exhibited in sharks that lets them give birth without needing to mate.

Initially, Team Ecco thought Charlotte may have experienced parthenogenesis or was a part of a "stingray-shark hybrid," because she resided with male sharks, but these theories were all debunked.

Parthenogenesis means "virgin birth," in Greek and describes when an egg develops into an offspring without fertilization.

Facultative parthenogenesis, which is what is being seen in these common smooth-hound sharks, allows an animal to reproduce both sexually and asexually, depending on the circumstances.

In parthenogenesis, a polar body fuses with the unfertilized egg, triggering it to form an embryo. This is different than cloning, Lyons cautions, which would create an exact copy of the mother ray.

A North Carolina aquarium announced that a stingray who has not been around a male companion in eight years is pregnant. Parthenogenesis, or asexual reproduction, is a rare phenomenon that can ...

Last year, scientists reported parthenogenesis in an American crocodile. There are even some snake and lizard species that reproduce only through parthenogenesis and have given up sex entirely.

The female epaulette shark was never housed with a male shark but produced a fertile egg, apparently via a process known as parthenogenesis.

What if the song "Baby Shark" stopped after just two stanzas? There's no Daddy Shark in sight at a Chicago-area zoo where an epaulette shark pup hatched this summer.

A team of ecologists and evolutionary biologists at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, has found that some normally asexual species of stick insects, which are known to reproduce via ...

In a historic first, scientists have used gene editing to induce virgin birth in fruit flies, a major step in unlocking the mysteries of the intriguing phenomenon known as parthenogenesis.