In this world of Photoshop and online scams, it pays to have a hearty
dose of skepticism at reports of something strange—including an albino
fetal shark with one eye smack in the middle of its nose like a Cyclops.
But the Cyclops shark, sliced from the belly of a pregnant mama dusky
shark caught by a commercial fisherman in the Gulf of California
earlier this summer, is by all reports the real thing. Shark researchers
have examined the preserved creature and found that its single eye is
made of functional optical tissue, they said last week. It's unlikely,
however, that the malformed creature would have survived outside the
womb.
"This is extremely rare," shark expert Felipe Galvan Magana of
Mexico's Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias del Mar said. "As far as I know, less than 50
examples of an abnormality like this have been recorded."
Pisces Fleet, a sportfishing company, rocketed the Cyclops shark to
viral status online this summer with their photos of the creepy-cute
creature. But this isn't the first time that reports of a
mythical-seeming creature have spurred media sensations.
Cyclops shark
The Cyclops
shark is an exception. While rare, "cyclopia" is a real developmental
anomaly in which only one eye develops. Human fetuses are sometimes
affected, as in a 1982 case in Israel reported in 1985 in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.
In that case, a baby girl was born seven weeks early with no nose and
only one eye in the center of her face. The infant, who lived only 30
minutes after birth, also had severe brain abnormalities.
In 2006, a kitten born with one eye and no nose (a rare condition
called holoprosencephaly), created a stir online as news organizations
and bloggers tried to determine if the bizarre photos of the animal were
real. A veterinarian confirmed the kitten's condition; "Cy," as the cat
was known, lived only a day. The remains were sold to the creationist
Lost World Museum.
The fisherman who discovered the Cyclops shark is reportedly hanging
on to the preserved remains, news outlets reported. But scientists have
recently examined and X-rayed the fish, authenticating the catch.
According to Seth Romans, a spokesman for Pisces Fleet, Galvan Magana
and his colleagues will publish a scientific paper about the find within
the next several weeks.
Romans told LiveScience that the fisherman who caught the strange
shark is "amazed and fascinated" by the attention his catch has drawn.
It's not the first strange shark fetus Galvan Magana has found; he
and his colleagues discovered two-headed shark embryos in two different
female blue sharks. It's possible that one embryo started to split into
twins, but failed to completely separate because of crowding in the
womb, the researchers reported in January 2011 in the journal Marine Biodiversity Records.
Lair of the kraken?
Another recent report of a cryptic creature comes without the
benefit of photographic evidence. Nor do the monster-hunters in this
scenario have a body to display.
That's because the discovery is of an alleged "kraken's lair,"
a spot where 200-million-year-old ichthyosaur bones mingle in odd
patterns. Paleontologist Mark McMenamin reads these patterns as evidence
of a giant, ancient squid-like creature playing with its food, and he
said as much on October 10 at the annual meeting of the Geological
Society of America. Supporting his claim, he said, is the fact that even
today Pacific octopus, which are also cephalopods like the ancient
"kraken," have been seen taking down sharks.
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