back to article Florida fisherman bags two-headed MUTANT SHARK

A Florida fisherman found an unpleasant-looking surprise in the belly of a bull shark he had just caught; a two-headed fetus ready to be born. Two-headed Bull Shark Double the bite (credit: Journal of Fish Biology) The specimen, described in the latest Journal of Fish Biology, has two heads side-by-side, each with its own …

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  1. pavsmith
    Devil

    It's extra evil!

    Now just imagine if you could get a frickin' laser or two onto one of those!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's extra evil!

      Agreed. Twice the lasers, it's clearly mutated, and very likely ill-tempered!

    2. skeptical i
      Mushroom

      Re: It's extra evil!

      Just make sure they DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS!!!!!!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's extra evil!

      Probably caused by all the pollution in the sea.

  2. LarsG

    No

    Can't you see the stitches where they've been sown together?

  3. Chris G

    Springfield, Florida

    So was this caught near the power station where that nice Mr Burns employs a fat yellow safety officer?

    1. FrankAlphaXII
      Mushroom

      Re: Springfield, Florida

      No, but Crystal River Unit 3 is on the Gulf, in the Redneck Riviera, and their safety record is about as abysmal. That plant is going to be decommissioned though, and hasn't produced any energy since 2009. The containment building cracked while it was being refueled and uprated.

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Springfield, Florida

        How exactly, does one crack a nuclear containment building?

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. tkioz
    Facepalm

    Yeah the hippies are going to jump up and down on this screaming 'pollution!'... never mind that there have been recorded cases of humans born like this for thousands of years... Chances are it's just a random birth defect like conjoined twins.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @tikoz

      Wow - you think?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Unprovoked?

    "According to the International Shark Attack File, there were 80 instances of unprovoked shark attack against humans in 2012, with seven deaths.

    By contrast, around 100 million sharks were killed last year, a fair number of which had their fins cut off for soup before being thrown back into the sea to sink and drown. ®"

    So the 80 against humans isn't really that unprovoked?

    1. Handle-with-care
      Pirate

      Re: Unprovoked?

      Well said!

      More clarity here: http://www.seashepherd.org/sharks/

  6. Rampant Spaniel

    I've never understood why they throw back the rest of the shark, especially when they come from a country with food shortages. Shark tastes nice, quite a few countries do eat shark. It's crazy theres no market for it.

    All we need is Jaimie Oliver to do a recipe and Tesco's will be full of it.

    1. skeptical i
      Pint

      Rebrand it with a different name, say it's chock full of "male enhancing" minerals

      and that it helps with weight loss, and it'll fly off shelves. People kvetching about kids not eating healthy, I bet they'd eat shark.

      <-- Fried shark sticks, chips, and beer ... could be tasty.

      1. Rampant Spaniel

        Re: Rebrand it with a different name, say it's chock full of "male enhancing" minerals

        Very true it's all in the marketing, just like the angry anti veggie crowd who have no issues eating cheese on toast.

        Shark n bake it awesome, if we move towards ensuring shark fishers sell their entire catch it could help with overfishing of other stocks. Plus you could easily use it in stuff like fish fingers \ fish pies \ fish burgers without much resistance.

        A major reason I hate celeb chefs is they take a cheap food (rhubarb, cod cheeks, pollock etc) and feature it and all of a sudden it costs a sodding fortune to make a rhubarb crumble. England does focus too much on cod. I like it, but theres a lot of very tasty fishies out there and if we were more tolerant of other fish we could eat a lot better for a lot less.

        1. Tim Parker

          Re: Rebrand it with a different name, say it's chock full of "male enhancing" minerals

          "Very true it's all in the marketing, just like the angry anti veggie crowd who have no issues eating cheese on toast."

          That, honestly, is a phenomenon i've not come across before - great mental image though..

          "A major reason I hate celeb chefs is they take a cheap food (rhubarb, cod cheeks, pollock etc) and feature it and all of a sudden it costs a sodding fortune to make a rhubarb crumble. "

          ..then leave the cod cheeks and pollock out of your rhubarb crumble mate - save yourself a fortune.

          1. Rampant Spaniel

            Re: Rebrand it with a different name, say it's chock full of "male enhancing" minerals

            @Tim

            haha thank for the advice :-) I'm not actually vegetarian but I do eat less meat these days, mostly due to quality concerns rather than bunny cuddling concerns. I have noticed that some folks do decide they aren't going to eat something if it's labelled as veggie but will quite happily eat something like an egg mcmuffin or a cheese omlette etc. It's just branding.

            I think comparing shark meat to horse meat is spot on. Both are\can be very high quality products (I guess like anything they can also be poor quality) but aren't recognised due to social prejudices. If you ever get chance, try shark, it's good food! I do understand it's financially better to stuff a boat with shark fin rather than shark meat, but I also think it's freaking crazy we throw away potentially great quality meat when we have junk at home and there are people starving elsewhere in the world. As I said, one Jamie Oliver recipe and shark would be in every supermarket by the end of the week. If you create a market maybe it will be financially viable to land sharks, they'd fill their boats quicker.

            1. Tim Parker

              Re: Rebrand it with a different name, say it's chock full of "male enhancing" minerals

              "If you ever get chance, try shark, it's good food!"

              I'd love to !... not had the chance yet, although had the odd bit from some of its relatives. We also used to get fabulous conger here until they shut the fish market down, now it's like hens teeth, i'd like to see that in the super-markets as well.. gorgeous.

    2. pavsmith

      The ubiquitous "flake and chips" in awstraylya is shark.

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

        Rock Salmon

        As it used to be called in the UK - AKA dogfish, a tiny shark.

    3. Tom 7

      Why do they throw back the rest of the shark?

      A boat full of fins is worth a couple of thousand times more than one full of shark meat. There is a market for shark meat but when your boat has limited space would you fill it with a high profit product or the piscine equivalent of horsemeat?

      1. JetSetJim

        Re: Why do they throw back the rest of the shark?

        > piscine equivalent of horsemeat

        FWIW, "good" horsemeat is more expensive than beef. Naturally Findus et al aren't using "good" horsemeat, though.

        1. FreeTard
          Thumb Up

          Re: Why do they throw back the rest of the shark?

          Indeed, the best meat I have ever eaten was baby horse in the Pyrenees. Unbelievable flavour and tender as you like - as babies tend to be no doubt. I do not know why we don't sell it over here.

    4. Andy Hards
      Unhappy

      Why do they throw back the rest?

      Because the fins are worth a small fortune and the rest isn't. Weight for weight they can get get way way more (that's an actual amount by the way) so why keep the rest? They have just cut the fins off, they don't really care about the thing, only the money they can make.

      1. Rampant Spaniel

        Re: Why do they throw back the rest?

        @Andy, I know, hence my second post. I understand why, I just think it's crazy.

    5. Michael Habel
      Trollface

      Yeah the next thing ya'know

      You'll walk into a Tescos looking for some Shark Steak, and leave with Horse Meat Steaks!

      1. Rampant Spaniel

        Re: Yeah the next thing ya'know

        Either has to be better than 69p lasagne or the random fish from Vietnam or China we seem to get these days :-) I think we are wayyyy to picky about what species we eat and not picky enough about the quality of what we do eat. Squirty cheese can be stuffed full of chemicals but god forbid your carrot is too long or the wrong shape, then it's only good for horse food. iirc some of the supermarkets did sell 'novelty' veg that 'wasn't for consumption' at halloween one year, all perfectly decent stuff, just the wrong shape \ size. Mad.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Goldfish DNA found in shark paella.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        Shark Fin

        I think the cultures in which Shark Fin is eaten are those for which delicacies are the bits of the animal which are *different*.

        Therefore, shark fin, chicken feet etc. are popular, the rest of the animal not so much.

        1. Thomas 4
          Stop

          Re: Shark Fin

          It doesn't matter whether they eat the rest of the damn shark or not. Sharks have an extremely low reproductive cycle when compared to other fish species, so it's little wonder that a large number of sharks are critically endangered. Shark fishing simply isn't sustainable, regardless of how much of the shark is eaten.

          1. Rampant Spaniel

            @thomas 4

            ah, thank you for the schooling :-) sorry, couldn't resist, but genuinely thanks for the info.

    7. Alan Brown Silver badge

      A lot of the sharks being finned are notionally protected species, so selling parts is illegal and fins are a lot easier to hide than complete bodies of evidence.

      Shark might taste nice (althought you're probably thinking of dogfish), but it goes off _very_ quickly and if you make a mistake whilst gutting and pierce the ammonia sac, not only is the carcass you're processing ruined, so is pretty much anything else - including the processing room until it's thoroughly hosed down.

      Dogfish are not protected and there's no apparent shortage of them.

    8. Triggerfish

      From what I understand it doesn't bring a high enough price to fill your hold with compared with other things, it doesn't taste as good as snapper etc so they fetch a far higher price.

      Supermarkets in the UK used to sell shark, pressure from the Shark trust caused them to stop selling it a few years back.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thanks BP!

    Could it just be a fluke that this shark was caught near a devastating oil spill? It might be, but I'm being polite and thanking BP anyways!

    1. Rampant Spaniel

      Re: Thanks BP!

      Was the fluke bit on porpoise?

      1. Harvey Trowell
        Coat

        Re: Thanks BP!

        If it was, he ain't tailfin.

  8. bogwart
    Angel

    Mutant routants

    Wow. You can see a representation of Baby Jeebus on it. Watch eBay for more details.

  9. Nanners
    IT Angle

    Two faced mutant beast.

    It looks like windows 8.

    1. kovlen
      Thumb Up

      Re: Two faced mutant beast.

      Actually, Windows 8 is worse - it's two "heads" are asymmetric ;-)

  10. mfritz0
    Happy

    Just call it turbo

    Just call it turbo, no one will know the difference.

  11. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    I'd call it the Management Shark

    This mutant looks like a condensed version of our organisation chart.

  12. Joe 48

    Film or True Story

    "Two headed shark attack", I figured a film so poor couldn't have been made up......

    1. Ramiro
      Happy

      Re: Film or True Story

      Your wish my command.

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2043757/

      It's got Carmen Electra on it, so it must be good.

      To be honest, I'm sure I saw a different one, so there are probably more two headed mutant shark films around.

      1. Joe 48

        Re: Film or True Story

        I've watched it. Never before in movie history have so many pairs of people been lined up to be killed.

        I have an odd love of poor syfy movies so you may have seen any of the following:-

        Malibu Shark Attack

        Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus

        Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus

        Mega Piranha

        Sharktopus

        Dinocroc

        Dinoshark

        Dinocroc vs. Supergator

        Piranhaconda

  13. kovlen
    Thumb Up

    The article and subtitle are amusing, but some comments just made my day.

  14. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Happy

    And so it begins...

    The day the Earth fights back

    Be afraid, be very afraid.

    Is that rich melodic music I hear?.......

  15. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Pregnant Shark

    When they caught the Bull Shark, clearly they should have spotted it was pregnant and released it back? Granted they released its unborn shark babies but they should have let the shark alone. Sharks have a hard enough time as it.

    This mutant shark would have probably died shortly after birth anyway.

  16. skeptical i
    Devil

    update photo: "Awwww, lawyers are so cute when they's just wittles!"

    *snrk*

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