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Two-Headed Dolphin Washes Up on Turkish Beach

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Body of two-headed dolphin washes up on Turkish beach http://t.co/UtqK9NANzC pic.twitter.com/Bie5cUoU6E

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) August 10, 2014

From tennis shoes to banana bunches, some strange things have been known to wash up on beaches. But one of the strangest has to be the two-headed dolphin whose carcass was recently found on a beach in Turkey, according to Turkish media reports.

A gym teacher found the remains of the conjoined baby dolphins on a beach in Dikili, near the western city of Izmir, the private Dogan news agency said, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The rare condition of having two heads is known as polycephaly, and is known to occur in humans and other animals as well. Polycephalic animals form by the same process as conjoined twins, when an embryo partially divides to form two individuals, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Turkish marine biologists plan to study the polycephalic dolphin, news agencies reported.

Tanya Lewis
Tanya Lewis
Staff Writer
Tanya was a staff writer for Live Science from 2013 to 2015, covering a wide array of topics, ranging from neuroscience to robotics to strange/cute animals. She received a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a bachelor of science in biomedical engineering from Brown University. She has previously written for Science News, Wired, The Santa Cruz Sentinel, the radio show Big Picture Science and other places. Tanya has lived on a tropical island, witnessed volcanic eruptions and flown in zero gravity (without losing her lunch!). To find out what her latest project is, you can visit her website.