Female shark set for virgin birth

A female shark which has had no contact with males for more than two years could be set to give birth to two babies.

The white spotted bamboo shark arrived at Great Yarmouth Sea Life Centre in 2013 having been evacuated from the badly flooded sister centre in Hunstanton.

She has been the only member of her species at the centre in that time and has had no contact with male sharks.

But now experts at the centre have said she has produced two fertile eggs which are due to hatch in nine months time.

If the births are successful, the babies would be examples of an amazing phenomenon to conceive without a male which has only recently been identified in sharks.