Stuck on you

Science World, Jan 12, 2009 by Tara Bruno

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

You're not seeing double! These conjoined Nile Tilapia, which live in an aquarium in Bangkok, Thailand, are physically connected at the stomach. Every fish begins its life as a growing ball of cells inside an egg. "If this ball is damaged and partly splits, the two sections may develop into fish that are connected and share parts of their bodies," explains Andrew Goodwin, a fish pathologist at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. It's rare that twin siblings like these survive after hatching. But when this article went to press, the pair had been together for eight months already.