Rare Two-Headed Baby Shark Caught Off The Indian Coast
Most people would panic if they saw one shark in the water, but what if they saw two? A fisherman from Palghar, India, Nitin Patil, managed to capture a 6-inch baby shark and it had two heads!
“We do not eat such small fish, especially sharks, so I thought it was strange but decided to throw it anyway,” Patil told the Hindustan Times.
Although they threw the shark back into the sea, they did take a number of pictures that have been posted to Twitter.
two-headed #shark (dicephalic) recorded first time from #Maharashtra marine water. fisherman nitin patil from palghar, satpati found dicephalic Spadenose shark.
report – https://t.co/pq8zB94HPS@vidyathreya @SharkAdvocates @TheSharkStanley @akhileshkv7 @IUCNShark @anishandheria pic.twitter.com/fCIDXPd802— Akshay Mandavkar🌿 (@akshay_journo) October 12, 2020
Another fisherman, Umesh Palekar, also saw the two-headed shark and told the Hindustan Times that researchers were able to see the pictures. They were working on figuring things out because they said that they had not seen anything like this before.
Palekar told the newspaper. “We believe one of the larger sharks may have given birth to this double-headed shark baby.”
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According to scientists from the Indian Council for Agricultural Research – Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR-CMFRI) in Mumbai, it may be the first time a two-headed shark has been seen from that coast of India.
One scientist with the ICAR-CMFRI, Dr. Akhilesh KV, feels that it could be a spadenose shark or sharpnose shark, according to the Hindustan Times.
“Both are viviparous and are common in Maharashtra waters,” Akhilesh said.
Viviparous means “birthing live young which have developed inside the body of the parent,” the newspaper wrote.
One Marine biologist, Swapnil Tandel, said that the deformity could have a number of causes.
“These finds are so rare that it is difficult to find a cause for the anomaly,” Tandel said. “Genetic or metabolic disorders, viruses, pollution or overfishing could be the possible reasons.”
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