Scientists were taken aback after discovering evidence that the giant sawfish in Florida were giving birth in a most unusual way: asexually.

In invertebrates, such so-called “virgin birth” isn’t all that uncommon, but in animals with backbones, it’s very rare and has only been seen in creatures such as the Komodo dragon, some sharks, snakes such as boa constrictors and pit vipers, and in chickens and turkeys, according to a Live Science report.

Known as parthenogenesis, it had almost entirely been seen in captive animals, and it seems rare that the offspring they give birth to would survive, and scientists had questioned whether it happened at all in nature or if this was a phenomena of captivity.

However, new evidence shows that among smalltooth sawfish, which are critically endangered, there is a fairly large amount of virgin births in the wild. And Demian Chapman, a marine biologist at Stony Brook University in New York who was a co-author of the study, said according to the report that this may be a survival technique for rare species fighting for survival.

Sawfish come in five species, and they are essentially large rays with long snouts ridged with teeth that they use to grab small fish. They have skeletons made of cartilage — much like sharks — can be up to 25 feet long.

Overfishing and a loss of habitat is a grave threat to the sawfish, and scientists believe we could see them wiped out entirely due to human behavior.

Scientists sampled DNA from 190 smalltooth sawfish between 2004 and 2013, tagging them and releasing them back into the wild. They found in about seven cases there were parthenogens, or 3 percent of the sawfish. Five were likely siblings that were born the same time from a single brood.

Sawfish accomplish virgin birth through what is known as meiosis, which is when cells divide into sex cells, and these sex cells possess half of the necessary material for offspring.