Bizarre One-Eyed Cyclops Shark Confirmed as Real (VIDEO)

The images of the one-eyed cyclops shark that surfaced recently on the Web have been confirmed real and not manipulated by shark researchers.

According to media reports, the bizarre images, which many people thought looked more like cartoon character, are not a hoax.

The shark fetus was discovered near Cerralvo Island, Mexico, in the Gulf of California when fisherman Enrique Lucero León caught a pregnant dusky shark legally. It was inside this pregnant shark that he found the one-eyed variant.

According to reports by Fox News, Cyclopia is a rare congenital disorder which happens 1 in 16,000 born animals and 1 in 250 in embryos. Human cyclops are very rare, but are preserved in medical museums through-out the world. One case was in 1982 in Israel where a baby girl was born seven weeks early and only lived 30 minutes. She had no nose, one eye and had severe brain abnormalities.

The 22-inch long shark fetus is currently being examined by biologist Felipe Galván-Magaña and colleague Marcela Bejarano-Alvarez. Both of them will release a report to document their research.

This is extremely rare. As far as I know, less than 50 examples of an abnormality like this have been recorded, Galván told the Pisces Fleet Sportfishing blog.