Flotsam & Jetsam

Immaculate Conception? In February, the Aquarium & Shark Lab by Team ECCO, located in Hendersonville (N.C.), announced its stingray Charlotte was pregnant. Yet, they had no male stingrays in her tank. Scientists have concluded that the pregnancy is a rare process called parthenogenesis, in which the eggs develop independently without fertilization and create a clone of the mother.

Sharks Are Remarkable. Chelsea Black, a researcher studying shark migrations off Jupiter, FL, published an image of a silky shark that was regenerating a dorsal fin, ripped off when someone removed a satellite tag her team had attached. Last June, the same silky reappeared off Jupiter, giving researchers the rare opportunity to observe the shark's recovery over 232 days. They found that the shark's dorsal fin was almost back to 90 percent of its original size, having regenerated more than half of what had been cut off nearly eight months previously.

Dive Light Travel Warning. Harvey S. Cohen (Middletown, NJ) tells Undercurrent he was at Tokyo's Narita airport in mid-February, transferring to a flight to the U.S. He had his old Sola SF Dive 800 and a new Sola SF Dive 1200 light in his carry-on. The security screener insisted that the lights be carried unscrewed. He could unscrew the 1200 but not the 800, so they confiscated it. The screener showed him the relevant entry in his rule book, and it clearly required lights with lithium batteries to be carried open. Most modern dive lights have removable battery packs now, but older ones have integral batteries, which are less easily accessible. The rule exists in many countries (not the U.S.), so be advised.

Whales Having a Gay Old Time. Two male humpback whales have been observed having sex together. Despite decades of research on humpback whales, sightings of the male's penis have been rare. Copulation by the species had never been documented by people - until now, when two photographers captured images of a sexual encounter between two male whales off the coast of Hawaii. This makes the photos, taken by Lyle Krannichfeld and Brandi Romano, the first evidence of homosexual behavior in humpback whales as well as the first sighting of sex in the species.

UN World Open Day Photo Competition. Dive Photo Guide is collaborating with other agencies to launch the 11th international photo competition with five categories for entrants, including "Awaken New Depths", "Big and Small Underwater Faces", and "Underwater Seascapes". From now until April 7, photographers are invited to submit entries. Since its inception the competition has been curated by underwater photographer Ellen Cuylaerts with an international jury. We show a winning entry from last year: "No Time to Waste". By Simon Lorenz (Germany). https://tinyurl.com/dm73n9kt

Prime Minister Goes Diving. Taking advantage of the photo opportunity, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, went scuba diving off the Panchkui beach coast in Gujarat on February 25 to pray as he viewed the submerged ancient Dwarka city of Lord Krishna, excavated by archaeologists. Wearing a white diving helmet and ochre robes, Modi sat cross-legged on the sea bed, folded his hands in prayers, and waved peacock feathers before offering them to Lord Krishna, all with the aid of Indian Navy Divers. He made it safely back to the surface.

Doing It the Hard Way. Croatian Valentina Cafolla took back her breath-hold ice diving record only 36 hours after Japanese Yasuko Ozeki captured it at Shiretokogo Lake in Japan's Hokkaido island, by diving and covering 459 feet horizontally on a single breath under the ice, with a monofin and wearing only a wetsuit, in the frozen Lago di Anterselva in the Italian Alps. Entering the water through a hole cut in the ice, it was imperative she made it to a similarly prepared hole or die. Why people do this is beyond us, but it's obviously addictive because the next day she broke another record with two fins by covering 262 feet.

Yet Another Liveaboard Goes Down. Another liveaboard, this time it was the MY. Sea Legend, has sunk in the Red Sea. On the night of February 23, an electrical fault caused a cable fire that eventually destroyed the vessel which sank near El Quseir. Egyptian authorities claim that all aboard were rescued although other sources say one German diver is still missing. The crew are in custody pending a full investigation, reports Taucher.net

And Another Burns. This was the liveaboard MY. Oceanic in Raja Ampat on March 1. A galley fire -- nobody was reported hurt.