Two-headed rays rarely

The polluted marine environment has little impact on the life of ocean creatures, including the birth of a small stingray.

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While examining the lake of stingrays, Leonardo Guida - a graduate student at Monash University in Melbourne (Australia) - was fascinated by an oddly shaped creature, pale in color in the country.

The first two rays are found in Australia.(Photo: doubtfulnews.com)

This creature is a two-headed stingray but unfortunately it's dead. This is the first case of stingray rays found in Australia and rare in the world for birth defects in rays and sharks.

Defects arise when the neural tube (like the spinal cord) in a single fertilized egg is duplicated, possibly due to genetic defects or other unknown causes. This phenomenon can also happen when an embryo begins to divide into two to form twins, but the process is stopped too soon, making it impossible to form two separate individuals.

'The cause of this two-headed stingray may be due to development problems, not the result of genetic mutations. Environmental pollution may be the cause, but we have not yet checked it to make a conclusion " - Mr. Guida said.

Scientists have caught stingrays (Trygonorrhina dumerilii) during a diving trip at Swan Bay, Port Phillip, south of Melbourne and brought back to the research lab. Port Phillip Bay has recently been dredged on a large scale to expand shipping channels that pollute heavy sediments. That activity combined with the habit of eating organisms living in the ocean floor of stingrays can make it exposed to pollutants.

Previously, a two-headed cow shark was also discovered in Florida (USA).