A Siberian fisherman was quite confused when he caught two pike with sharp horns of unknown cause.
Alexey, a 25-year-old fisherman, caught two strange pike in the Irtysh River in Siberia last fall, according to the Siberian Times. A fish weighing 12 kg has two horns, while the other weighing 7 kg has 4 horns. Alexey’s fishing mates immediately dubbed them dragons.
Alexey decided to eat two fish, although he was warned that they might contain poison. He kept and dried the head, storing it in the garage. “I was very impressed with the two fish they caught. They have horns that curl towards the tail. The smaller one even has four horns, ”said Alexey.
Locals try to explain how pike is cultivated and suspect pollution is caused. For years, they worried about the effects of missile fragments falling from launches at the Baikonur space airport in Kazakhstan. Journalists attributed the debris containing rocket fuel to causing illnesses among children in the area.
“It is true that sometimes parts of the missile launched from Baikonur fall into the swamp around here, causing pollution due to leaked missile fuel,” said Mikhail Kolesov, a local emergency aid worker.
Arkady Balushkin, director of the fisheries laboratory at the Institute of Zoology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, suspects the cause is pollution. “Any change due to the effects of chemicals or radiation does not result in these new changes. Pike is still a pike, it can grow or swell, these are common diseases in this species. But they can hardly grow. horns … To confirm if it’s a pike, instead of another fish, I need to see it firsthand, “Balushkin said.
In humans, a rare syndrome that produces a radiation-induced horn. According to Dr E J Crossman, the pike song phenomenon is extremely rare but not unprecedented. “So far, exactly six separate cases have occurred. All six fish have a well-defined structure known as ‘horns, spikes or claws,’ ” Balushkin wrote in an article published in 1987.
