A group of fishermen found a two-headed porpoise baby while searching for fish in the southern North Sea in May 2017.
The porpoise has a small body, like a newborn dolphin. Only, the popoise baby has one peculiarity: it has two heads.
Porpoise conjoined twins were initially accidentally caught by the fishermen. Although the fish feel weird, the fishermen decided to return the dead mammals to the sea for fear of getting caught. They think that storing the mammal carcass is an illegal act. Fortunately, the fishermen had time to capture some photos of the physical condition of the fish.
The two porpoises sharing one body are the first reported cases of porpoise twins. Unfortunately, the conjoined twin porpoise is thought to die shortly after birth. The findings are published in a recent issue of the Deinse Journal of the Natural History Museum of Rotterdam.
Conjoined twin cases are very rare in wild animals. Not only is the case of the world's first conjoined porpoise twins ever reported, the fish is also one of ten cases of conjoined twins in families of whale and dolphin species. Until now, the exact number of such phenomena is never known for certain given the high fetal death of the species.
Porpoise and dolphins come from the same family Catacea (which means big sea creatures). However, porpoises and dolphins are distinct species. The thing that distinguishes porpoise with dolphins is on the fins, head shape, and body shape in general.
Dolphins usually have a dorsal fin fins, while porpoise has a right-angled fin. In addition, in general the body of the dolphin is slimmer than a fat body purpoise.
