A stunned fisherman has shared photo and video of a fish he caught that has a bird’s head in China. The creature was caught by a local fisherman in Guizhou, south-west area of China, reported Guizhou Urban Newspaper. Video footage shows the odd fish gasping on the ground. While its body looks like a normal fish’s body, its head has a distinctive, mismatched shape. The video has been circulating on Chinese online forums as well as on Facebook in the past week, leaving web users debating over what the creature really is.
People have compared the shaped of the fish’s head to that of a pigeon, parrot or dolphin. One Facebook user, called ‘Hong Fang’, questioned: ‘Is this a cross-breed of carp and dolphin?’ While another Facebook user ‘Duan Yiching’ said: ‘It looks like a radioactive fish to me.’
Fish expert at Natural History Museum told MailOnline that they cannot identify the exact species of the fish but concluded that it is under the group, Cyprinidae, as a carp family.The fish in the video could be showing a deformity known as ‘pug-head’, which is often seen in fishes, stated the expert.
International Union for Conservation of Nature explained that water pollution, genetic mutations and injury early in life could be the possible causes to the abnormal appearance of the fish. Yang Xing, an expert from the Guizhou Fisheries Research Institute, told Guizhou Urban Daily that the bird-headed fish is actually a carp and it’s deformed.
The expert said deformation is commonly seen among the freshwater fish species. He carried on explaining the possible causes of the deformation.
‘One possibly is that the embryo was damaged when it was growing; another possibility is that the lack of oxygen in water – due to over-crowded fishing farming – caused the fish’s head to be deformed.’According to the report, the fish was set free by the anglers after being caught.
Watch video below:
Dailymail