Virgin shark gives birth to offspring

CHICAGO, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- A researcher at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History says he confirmed the first known case of surviving offspring being born to a virgin female shark.

Kevin Feldheim, manager of the Field Museum's Pritzker Laboratory for Molecular Systematics and Evolution, said a genetic analysis of a white-spotted bamboo shark and its two offspring revealed the female shark gave birth without the involvement of a male, the Chicago Sun-Times said Monday.

"It turned out that all the genetic material in each of the young ones came from the mother, proving there was no father," said Feldheim, whose findings were published in the Journal of Heredity.

Feldheim said the female shark gave birth to the two offspring in 2002 thanks to a process called parthenogenesis in which a female animal reproduces asexually without the involvement of a mate.

The Sun-Times said the female shark had not been near a male shark for six years before giving birth to its offspring.

"Developing the species' specific markers or microsatellites was actually very difficult and became a real challenge," Feldheim said of his genetic research.