A venomous two-headed snake was discovered slithering around in a garden in Virginia last week, a find that a wildlife expert is calling extremely rare.
The baby Eastern Copperhead snake was found in a yard in a northern Virginia neighbourhood and pictures and a video of it twisting and wriggling were posted to Facebook by a wildlife expert.
Such two-headed snakes are “exceptionally rare,” mainly because they don’t live that long, a Virginia herpetologist J.D. Kleopfer said on Facebook.
Snakes with a mutation like this have a difficult time surviving in the wild, Kleopfer said, adding that it’s because the two heads often want to do “two different things.”
After a resident found the snake, a state herpetologist brought the snake to the Wildlife Center of Virginia on Thursday for an examination.
Wildlife officials said the two heads were found to have two tracheas and two esophagi, but share one heart and set of lungs. State biologists believe both heads are capable of biting and distributing venom, according to the Charlotte Observer.
“Based on the anatomy, it would be better for the right head to eat, but it may be a challenge since the left head appears more dominant,” experts at the Wildlife Center of Virginia said in a news release.
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Kleopfer said officials hope the rare snake will eventually be donated to a zoo and put on exhibit.
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— With a file from the Associated Press
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