MUSEUM CAMPUS — Piquet, a white-sided dolphin at Shedd Aquarium, is pregnant again.
It's baby number two for Piquet, 27, who previously gave birth to a male, Sagu, in 2012. The new calf is expected in June.
Shedd officials said Wednesday that Piquet is in her second trimester of pregnancy after returning from Miami Seaquarium in October. There, she mated with Lii, the so-called "stud" of North American white-sided dolphins, a rare species indigenous to the Pacific Ocean.
"It's not a monogamous species, but Lii was the only male present," said Tim Binder, Shedd's vice president of collection planning.
Lii also fathered Piquet's other calf, meaning her two children will be full biological siblings.
There are only 16 white-sided dolphins in North American aquatic facilities, and most of them were born in an aquarium, Binder said. Little is known about the species, with facts such as life expectancy still up in the air. The most researched dolphin species, Bottlenoses, can give birth in their forties, Binder said.
Despite dolphins' long window of fertility, white-sided pregnancies last 12 months, and as such reproduction can occur only once every few years. Binder said Piquet's second pregnancy was a Shedd priority simply "to manage and grow the collection."
Piquet received a weekly ultrasound Wednesday, but Binder said it is still "hard to tell" the new calf's sex.
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