biologist have document two - head animals before , like snakes and lizard — but a finding like this is extremely uncommon . It ’s a two - headed bull shark , and it was discovered by a Florida fisherman after cutting start the uterus of an adult shark .
This handsome specimen never had a luck to be born , but it ’s doubtful it would have survived anyway . It ’s an model of dicephalia , and it ’s the first time leatherneck biologist have seen it in a shit shark .
The deformity is also pertain to as an axial bifurcation , the effect of an conceptus bomb to split properly into two freestanding individuals;halfway through the process of forming similitude , the embryo stops dividing . As the MRIs show , the shark have their own hearts and stomachs , with the residue of the body link up together in the back half to take shape a single bum . Thefindings were recently publishedin the Journal of Fish Biology .
Scientists have discovered two - head sharks before , including blue-blooded shark and tope sharks , but this is the first sentence it ’s been control in a bull shark .
Lead researcher Michael Wagner , assistant prof of fisheries and wildlife at Michigan State University , was reluctant to attribute the dicephalia to pollutants .
“ afford the timing of the shark ’s breakthrough with the Deepwater Horizon oil colour spillway , I could see how some people may want to jump to conclusions , ” he said in astatement . “ make that saltation is wild . We simply have no grounds to bear that cause or any other . ”
Image : Courtesy of Patrick Rice , Shark Defense / Florida Keys Community College ; Michael Wagner , MSU .
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