Stingray Gives Birth to Twins on Camera

Being able to get the chance of taking a video of a wild animal giving birth is a very rare opportunity, let alone if the animal is something that you’d usually find swimming and gliding gracefully along the waters of the deep sea. One teenage fisherman was lucky enough to catch everything on video and even help out with the birth.

While fishing in the waters of in Charlotte Harbor, the Punta Gorda Isles named Calvin Conger caught a pregnant stingray while it was delivering its babies.  Conger was actually out fishing for a bigger catch when he pulled up a stingray. To his surprise, the stingray was just moments away from giving birth while on the boat.

According to Conger, he felt a bit disappointed about his catch when he reeled it in and saw it on the hook and even decided to use the stingray as bait for sharks. He flipped it over on a fileting table and noticed that there were other stingers coming out of it. Conger father actually pushed the baby stingrays out of their mother. It gave birth to two babies and the family decided to throw them back to the ocean. Talk about a unique fish tale.

Like most elasmobranchs, like sharks and skates, stingrays are viviparous. This means that unlike fish and other common animals you’d see underwater, their babies come out as live young instead of eggs. Their offspring actually develop onside their bodies, usually inside an egg. The developing babies would rely on the egg yolk instead of the placenta as they grow inside their mother.