Blinky the three-eyed crab

Photo Credit: Gerhard Scholtz, Peter K. L. Ng and Stephen Moore

This strange creature is Blinky, a three-eyed freshwater crab that was found in the Hoteo river on New Zealands north island. Many of you may have heard of Blinky the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons but, unlike the fish whose deformities were comically blamed on nuclear waste pollution, this little critter is likely to be the result of conjoined crab twins.

German researcher Gerhard Scholtz and colleagues discovered this individual crab during their research in the Hoteo river and at first must've thought they had discovered a new species that defied all rules of biology. Unfortunately, closer examination showed a perfectly reasonable, yet rare, explanation for Blinkys abnormalities.

As well as the obvious three eyes, the little crab also has an antennae-like protrusion on it's back. Scientists believe that this would have been the fourth eye, but the damaged tissue regenerated into this antennae-like deformity.
It was also seen that Blinky had an abnormally small and deformed brain.

Although rare, conjoined twins have been seen in humans however this pattern of deformities has never before been seen in animals.