Two-Headed Blue Shark Surfaces
There have only been a handful of reported cases of two-headed sharks.
We recently wrote about a two-headed bull shark found by fishermen. One of our readers, Christopher Johnston, then sent us an email with photos he had taken on September 27, 2008 of a similarly surprising find: a two-headed blue shark. As far as we know these photos have never been published anywhere before.
As we previously reported, there have been only about a half dozen reported cases of two-headed sharks. The phenomenon arises through conjoined development of twins, the same process that produces what used to be called Siamese twins in people. (See more examples of two-headed animals.)
In January 2011, scientists published a review of two-headed blue sharks in the journal Marine Biodiversity Records. The malformed female blue