Nature is truly full of wonders and every once in a while, we get to witness the marvels it has to offer. In one such instance, a rare two-headed baby shark was found by a fisherman in Maharashtra’s Palghar.

As per a report in The Hindustan Times, a fisherman named Nitin Patil from Satpati village in Palghar discovered the six-inch shark with two heads in his net on Friday.

However, failing to understand what it is, he quickly snapped a few pictures of the rare fish and released it back into the sea. The pictures have now gone viral on social media, see them here:

“We do not eat such small fish, especially sharks, so I thought it was strange but decided to throw it anyway,” Patil was quoted as saying by the report.

Later, the fishermen shared the images of the baby shark with researchers from the Indian Council for Agricultural Research – Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (ICAR-CMFRI), Mumbai and they confirmed the discovery as ‘very rare documentation’.

An ICAR-CMFRI scientist told HT, “Our records show that double-headed sharks are very rarely reported along the Indian coast. This species appears to be the embryo of the spadenose shark (Scoliodon laticaudus) from the Carcharhinidae family or a sharpnose shark (Rhizoprionodon species). Both are viviparous [birthing live young which have developed inside the body of the parent], and are common in Maharashtra waters.”

He further said the heads of the baby shark were joined behind the gills and such two-headed sharks were quite rare in the wild.