Female sharks can fertilize their own eggs and give birth without sperm from males, according to a new study of the asexual reproduction of a hammerhead in a U.S. zoo.The joint Northern Ireland-U.S. research, being published in the Royal Society's peer-reviewed Biology Letter journal, analyzed the DNA of a shark born in 2001 in the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Neb. The shark was born in a tank with three potential mothers, none of whom had contact with a male hammerhead for at least three years.The baby was killed within hours of its birth by a stingray in the same tank. Analysis of its DNA found no trace of any chromosomal contribution from a male partner.Shark experts said this was the first confirmed case in a shark of parthenogenesis, which is derived from Greek and means "virgin birth."Before the study, many shark experts had presumed that the Nebraska birth involved a female shark's well-documented ability to store sperm for months. This seemed the most plausible scenario even though the sharks had arrived at the Nebraska zoo as immature pups.The lack of any paternal DNA in the baby shark ruled out this possibility. Credits of this report go to Royal Society Publishing  

(Personal remark of publisher:…. just hope that phenomena does not have a incubation period and is passed on to humans…