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The strange fish created in an Academia Sinica lab

PHOTO: DR. HUANG CHANG-JEN’S LAB

In a world first, scientists at the Academia Sinica in Teipei, Taiwan inadvertently developed
a genetically engineered two-headed fluorescent zebrafish with two
hearts.

Researchers conducting the research project said that the existence
of such a creature had never been documented anywhere else on Earth.

Huang Chang-jen, an associate research fellow at the Academia
Sinica’s Institute of Biological Chemistry, last week put a certain
gene into 200 zebrafish embryos at one-cell stage through a microinjection
procedure. One of them unexpectedly developed 24 hours later into
the two-headed fish, which has two hearts.

"Scientifically speaking, we still have a long way to go because
we have not yet created a second two-headed conjoined zebrafish," Huang
said.

Huang and his team repeated the experiment on Wednesday by injecting
the same gene into more than 100 embryos, but only found a few
abnormal creatures which were not conjoined.

According to Huang’s pet-fish sources, a two-headed red dragon
fish has been seen before but never a two-headed conjoined zebrafish.

from the Taipei Times