When video of a bizarre two headed carp were posted to Reddit earlier this month, users were understandably terrified, mostly because it looked like this:
The fish appears to have a second head that’s growing out of the bottom of its actual head. This fish makes us feel incredibly uneasy and looks more like something we’d expect to find in the unexplored depths of the ocean than right at the surface.Despite
Despite it looking like something out of a horror movie or a new discovery, this carps strange appearance is the result of either a serious deformity or injury. The illusion of it having two sets of eyes is because carp have high nostrils and their eyes are positioned much lower on their head than we’re used to seeing.
As Reddit user BaylisAscaris explains:
In case anyone’s curious, the top “eyes” are actually nostrils. The bottom eyes are the actual eyes. The top mouth is the actual mouth. The bottom “mouth” is a dislocated hyoid that tore the flesh open. I’ve seen this before, and fish can live a long time with it, but lose a lot of food while eating.
While it’s relieving to know we won’t be running into an army of mutated two headed carp, knowing what it is won’t change the lifetime of nightmares it just gave us.
