Aug 12, 2014 12:03 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

A bizarre two-headed dolphin washed up on the shore of a beach in Turkey and the man who found it was so stunned, he called the police after it washed up.

According to the Daily Mail, Tugrul Metin, a sports teacher, spotted the two-headed dolphin dead in the water off the shore of a beach in Izmir and watched it float to land. Shortly after the police arrived, authorities took the dolphin to a laboratory for further analysis.

Judging from its size, just more than three feet in length, the dolphin was a calf, no more than one year old. The strange creature had one tail and two heads, though one eye was apparently not fully formed.

"I noticed the dolphin in the sea and watched as it washed on to the beach," Metin, 39, told the Daily Mail. "I couldn't take it in at first - I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me - I've never even heard about a dolphin like this let alone seen one with my own eyes - I was completely shocked."

According to the Associated Press, the Drogan news agency, a private media corporation in Turkey, broke the story. Mehmet Gokoglu, an associate professor of marine biology at Akdeniz University, said the dolphin found on the beach in Izmir is rare, but is likely similar to a conjoined twin.

"Such a dolphin is a very rare occurrence - similar to the occurrence of conjoined human twins," he said.

Last year, Michigan State University researchers made a similar marine discovery, only with a two-headed bull shark, the Telegraph reported. The creature was discovered in April, 2011 on the Gulf of Mexico when a fisherman cut open an adult shark and found a two-headed baby.

Michael Wagner, an assistant professor of animals and fisheries, told the newspaper MRIs revealed the two-headed baby shark had two separate hearts and stomachs.

"This is certainly one of those interesting and rarely detected phenomena," he said. "It's good that we have this documented as part of the world's natural history."

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