Pictures of a “cyclops shark” , taken in Mexico, appeared online recently. Too strange to be true, it was quickly written off as a hoax. Until now. Scientists have revealed that it is in fact a 22-inch-long dusky shark fetus. It has a single, functioning eye that’s front and centre on its head.

The fetus was discovered after fisherman, Enrique Lucero León “legally caught” a pregnant dusky shark near Cerralvo Island in the Gulf of California. When he sliced open his catch, he found the odd-looking male embryo, along with nine normal siblings. According to National Geographic, two scientists, Galván-Magaña and colleague Marcela Bejarano-Álvarez, from the Interdisciplinary Center of Marine Sciences in La Paz, Mexico conducted the research.

But fear not – this is not some new shark super-breed. Jim Gelsleichter, a shark biologist at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, said that no sharks with cyclopia have been caught outside of the womb, indicating that if such sharks do enter the world, their time here is extremely short.

[Source: Discovery]