The Smalltooth Sawfish is considered one of the world’s most endangered species! These sharks can grow to a length of 20 feet. It is estimated that their population numbers are down to less than 5% of what it had been before the European settlement in the US.

The endangered smalltooth sawfish, found in the Atlantic Ocean, can produce young without having sex first, a new study finds.

Andrew Fields, a geneticist at Stony Brook University, recently noted that seven animals had DNA from only one parent while searching through a database of 190 sawfish tagged in southwestern Florida between 2004 and 2013. Virgin birth is known as parthenogenesis. Researchers are now curious to learn whether or not these animals will be able to produce offspring themselves, but the sawfish won’t reach sexual maturity until around 7 years of age.

Read the full story here: Rare Fish Performs “Virgin Births”—First Known in The Wild