A two-headed pig born in China was reported by NBC today, on the heels of a number of two-headed animals being born in many parts of the world recently.

According to news reports, a two-headed pig has been born in east China’s Jianxi province and the AFP shows an image of a pig with two snouts, two ears and what appeared to be a shared eye. The AFP news agency was told by a local veterinarian that the animal is suffering from a serious deformity and is unlikely to survive.

The deformity maybe the same condition found in other two-headed species, whose birth has been reported recently. It is called “axial bifurcation,” whom researchers has determined to be the cause of a two-headed bull shark in a study published last month in the Journal of Fish Biology.

The rare deformity is a result of an embryo splitting into two separate organisms, or twins. The process, however, is incomplete, thus resulting into the two-headed physical characteristic of the animals.

Michael Wagner, a researcher from Michigan State University told LiveScience that, “Halfway through the process of forming twins, the embryo stops dividing.”

He added that the mutation occurs across animals, even humans.

Although the deformity and condition is very rare, in addition to pigs, records have shown births of two-headed sharks, two-headed turtles, snakes, kittens and other critters.