It’s crazier-looking than most could imagine but researchers now report and confirm the existence of an albino fish in fetal stages--with photos showing only one eye in the center of its forehead--to be real: a true Cyclops shark. Fishermen say the baby shark with an eye in the middle of its forehead was cut from the belly of a pregnant dusky shark in the Gulf of California.
While it happened back in summer months, a discovery made by fishermen, shark researchers needed time to examine the preserved fetal Cyclops. The lone eye – at forehead center – scientists say is comprised of functional optical tissue. While study now confirms the shark fetus is not a fake, researchers say the Cyclops wouldn’t have lived long if born and once out of the mother's womb. The fish with a single eye has been examined, x-rayed and is now officially authenticated as real.
The shark abnormality and Cyclops definition is rare. Mexico's Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias del Mar claims less than 50 recorded examples of any similar abnormality to be in existence.
Photos of the Cyclops shark went viral in summer via Facebook, before research had been done – and before the picture ‘evidence’ had been confirmed as real in the age of Photoshop. Sportfishing company Pisces Fleet circulated a photo of the creature online that measures just under two feet, or 22" in length.
In "cyclopia,” only one eye develops. It’s a real abnormality. While the look is creepy and other-worldly, there’s even record of humans affected – a Cyclops. The last-known human cases of a Cyclops have been as recently as 1982 in Israel just over 25 years ago in 1985 as recorded by the British Journal of Ophthalmology. The Brits saw a a baby girl who arrived nearly 2 months early – or 7 seven weeks before the due date – born entirely absent of a nose and having only a single eye located in the center of her face. The female human lived just half of an hour after birth and carried additional, severe brain abnormalities in addition to cyclopia.
Most recently, the animal world saw the condition just five years ago -- in a feline also born with no nose but one single eye. The cyclopes kitten named “Cy” lived just one day with the extremely rare and abnormal condition that was confirmed by a veterinarian. The feline's body was later sold to a museum.
Shark expert Galvan Magana from Mexico's Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias del Mar has seen other abnormalities within sharks – including two-headed shark embryos in two different blue sharks. Experts say there’s a possibility that what were meant to be twins didn’t fully separate or develop differently because of tight space, in what could have been a situation of over-crowding within the shark’s womb. It's a theory explored in the Marine Biodiversity Records journal in early January 2011.
As for the newest Cyclops on the radar, the oddity was found among a brood of ten. Just one of the fetuses had an abnormality, the other nine sharks that were cut from the womb by fishermen all appeared to be normal. The eerie-looking Cyclops shark first stirred suspicions of a hoax when pictures of the creature first circulated online and throughout social media this summer, with its existence confirmed during one of the spookiest times of the year -- just in time for Halloween. Ray Villafane just may need a new subject for his pumpkin carving. The question is, can the master carve fins?