China is home to some unusual creatures. The giant panda. The fishbird. The binturong.
Wait… the fishbird?
A Chinese fisherman discovered an odd new creature this week: a fish with what appears to be a bird’s head. The creature was discovered as part of a fish haul in a river in the Guizhou province.
People noticed on Twitter, too:
This half-bird, half-fish in China is not something you see every day. pic.twitter.com/KElkZc8RiV
— SCMP News (@SCMP_News) June 12, 2018
OMG! A half-bird/half-fish was captured in China! Move over loch ness monster, there are plenty of other "fish in the sea!"https://t.co/MTUluXpx5J
— Steve Harvey Radio (@SteveHarveyFM) June 13, 2018
Livescience, however, has to be a buzzkill:
China’s Guizhou Urban Newspaper, which broke the news, identified the fish as the common freshwater carp (Cyprinus carpio). But that hasn’t stopped people from speculating that the creature could even be some kind of half-fish, half-bird — with its beak-like mouth and the small fins on its sides giving the appearance of wings.
To put these wild conjectures to rest, however, experts have come up with a more likely explanation: The fish’s unusually bulbous noggin, which sort of resembles that of a dolphin or a bird, was probably caused by a developmental problem early in its life.
Sure, that’s the scientific explanation, and that sounds likely. But in a world where conspiracy theories are accepted as fact and merely declaring evidence “fake” is expected to negate its validity, I have only one thing to say. FISHBIRD.
Question of the night: What two things would you like to see spliced together, whether Dr. Moreau-style or simply The Thing With Two Heads-style?
