Fish With 'A Human Face' Is Spotted In A Chinese Village

A visitor to a village in southern China has been left stunned after spotting a fish that appears to have a human face. Trending footage shows the carp sporting markings that resemble a man's mouth, nose and eyes on its head.

A woman who was filming the video was so awestruck by the sight she gushed: 'The fish has turned into a fairy.' The extraordinary animal was discovered yesterday by a visitor in the Miao Village, a tourist destination in the city of Kunming, according to popular blogger Feidian Videos. 

Web users in the country have been amazed by the 15-second clip since it emerged today on Weibo, China's equivalent to Twitter. One person wrote: 'This is scary.' Another queried: 'Who dares to eat it?'

Carp have long been known to carry markings which can look like a human face, but actually seeing one is rare. Sightings of 'human-faced carp' have been reported in Taiwan and the UK. In 2010, a 44-year-old British man found out that a carp he had bought five months earlier started to develop facial features like those of a human.

'It was astonishing. I could easily make out from the markings two eyes, a nose and a mouth. I thought I was suffering from sunstroke,' said the fish's owner Brendan O'Sullivan of Dagenham, Essex. Mr O'Sullivan's fish was said to be worth an estimated £40,000. In 2011, residents in north-eastern Taiwan's Yilan County were surprised to find a black-and-white carp with seemingly human features in a pond run by the local government.