The three headed fish if I were you I will pick up my pen and my note book and jot some important words down
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Three headed sharks may sound like a figment of the big screen, but they exist—and more are turning up worldwide, scientists say.
A few years ago off Florida, fishermen hauled in a
bull shark whose uterus contained a two-headed fetus. In 2008, another fisherman discovered a
two-headed blue shark embryo in the Indian Ocean.
And a 2011 study described conjoined twins discovered in blue sharks caught in the Gulf of California and northwestern Mexico. Blue sharks have produced the most recorded two-headed embryos because they carry so many babies—up to 50 at at time, says study leader Felipe Galván-Magaña, of the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico.
Now, Spanish researchers have identified an embryo of an Atlantic sawtail catshark with two heads, according to a new study in the Journal of Fish Biology. While raising sharks for human-health research in the laboratory, a team noticed the unusual embryo in a see-through shark egg.The catshark embyro was not your average two-headed beast—it's the first such specimen known from an oviparous shark species, or a shark that lays eggs.
Researchers opened the egg to study the specimen, and study leader Valentín Sans-Coma says it's unknown whether the deformed animal would have survived. Because it's the first such conjoined twin found in egg-laying sharks, its likely that such offspring don't live long enough MUTATION CAUSES
Two-headed sharks have been few and far between, so it's tough to know what's behind the mutations. (See more shark pictures.)
Sans-Coma and colleagues say a genetic disorder seems to be the most plausible cause for the two-headed catshark, since the embryos were grown in a lab among nearly 800 specimens. To the best of their knowledge, the eggs were not exposed to any infections, chemicals, or radiation.
But wild sharks' malformations could come from a variety of factors, including viral infections, metabolic disorders, pollution, or a dwindling gene pool due to overfishing, which leads to inbreeding, and thus genetic abnormalities. (See " New Diseases, Toxins Harming Marine Life.")
Three headed sharks may sound like a figment of the big screen, but they exist—and more are turning up worldwide, scientists say.
A few years ago off Florida, fishermen hauled in a
bull shark whose uterus contained a two-headed fetus. In 2008, another fisherman discovered a
two-headed blue shark embryo in the Indian Ocean.
And a 2011 study described conjoined twins discovered in blue sharks caught in the Gulf of California and northwestern Mexico. Blue sharks have produced the most recorded two-headed embryos because they carry so many babies—up to 50 at at time, says study leader Felipe Galván-Magaña, of the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico.
Now, Spanish researchers have identified an embryo of an Atlantic sawtail catshark with two heads, according to a new study in the Journal of Fish Biology. While raising sharks for human-health research in the laboratory, a team noticed the unusual embryo in a see-through shark egg.The catshark embyro was not your average two-headed beast—it's the first such specimen known from an oviparous shark species, or a shark that lays eggs.
Researchers opened the egg to study the specimen, and study leader Valentín Sans-Coma says it's unknown whether the deformed animal would have survived. Because it's the first such conjoined twin found in egg-laying sharks, its likely that such offspring don't live long enough MUTATION CAUSES
Two-headed sharks have been few and far between, so it's tough to know what's behind the mutations. (See more shark pictures.)
Sans-Coma and colleagues say a genetic disorder seems to be the most plausible cause for the two-headed catshark, since the embryos were grown in a lab among nearly 800 specimens. To the best of their knowledge, the eggs were not exposed to any infections, chemicals, or radiation.
But wild sharks' malformations could come from a variety of factors, including viral infections, metabolic disorders, pollution, or a dwindling gene pool due to overfishing, which leads to inbreeding, and thus genetic abnormalities. (See " New Diseases, Toxins Harming Marine Life.")
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