In this world of Photoshop and sᴄᴀᴍs online, it pays to have a heavy dose of skepticism over reports of anything strange, including a fetal Aʟʙɪɴᴏ shark with one eye smack dab in the middle of its nose like a cyclops.
Fishermen from sʜᴏᴄᴋᴇᴅ in Indonesia have found an incredibly rare Aʟʙɪɴᴏ shark with only one eye. The cyclops was found inside the belly of an adult shark that ᴅɪᴇᴅ got caught in the nets while fishermen navigated the Moluccas province.
The adult shark was cleaned and its belly cut open ᴄᴜᴛ to ʀᴇᴍᴏᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ɢᴜᴛ where they found the tiny white shark inside. It may look like a creature from an ancient myth, but this one-eyed shark is the real deal.
It had a large eye in the middle of its forehead along with a milky white body and fully formed fins. The largest ᴘʀᴇᴅᴀᴛᴏʀ is believed to have been pregnant when it got caught in the net. One of the fishermen said: “We found three babies inside…but one of them looked strange with only one eye. Its color was also strange… like milk.”
The condition of the shark, known as ᴄʏᴄʟᴏᴘɪᴀ, is a rare ᴄᴏɴɢᴇɴɪᴛᴀʟ ᴅɪsᴏʀᴅᴇʀ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀɪsᴇᴅ due to the failure of the front part of the brain to properly divide the eye sockets into two cavities. This anomaly is associated with cerebral ᴅᴇꜰᴇᴄᴛs. In humans, it is not known to occur in a single twin.
There has been a documented case of a baby having ᴄʏᴄʟᴏᴘɪᴀ, but the baby had ᴅɪᴇᴅ before birth. The parents were healthy and the cause of the abnormal development is not known. In the case of the shark embryo, scientists believe that the embryo would not have sᴜʀᴠɪᴠᴇᴅ outside of the mother shark’s womb.
It is not the first time that a one-eyed shark has emerged from the depths. In 2011, one of the extremely rare creatures was reported to have been found inside the womb of a bull shark in the Gulf of California.
Marine expert Felipe Galván Magana, from Mexico’s Interdisciplinary Center for Marine Sciences, said at the time: “This is extremely rare. To the best of my knowledge, fewer than 50 examples of an anomaly like this have been recorded.”
