>>Well not really but Carl is right. Two headed snakes are not that uncommon and turtles even more so. It is a form of incomplete twinning that causes it. Glades Herp kept a two head Texas Rat snake called "Them" for years and it did fairly well. It had to eat smaller then normal food items but grew just fine.
>>Many snakes that are born this way also have other issues internally and may not live very long, but oddly with snakes that have two fully developed heads and two brians, they will do ok and sometimes fight over which direction they want the body to go.
>>I would not ever try and breed out this gene, and seeing that it is simply a twinning error, I don't know that you could, but I also would not put a snake down just because of the defect either.
>>Nice post, I have never seen this in a live bearer before
>>-----
>>Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
>>Hopkins Holesale Herps
>>Hopfam1@aol.com


Hi Jim,

I honestly wasn't attempting to put the animal 'down', my post was made more out of curiosity and trying to understand. ^.^ I had assumed actually that it was a mutation - not an error during twinning. I did not know that, thank you.

I just wonder how such an animal eats properly... I know there is a propensity with snakes that if there are two animals around a food item, they will fight for it... would this not occur in a case like this, especially if each 'half' has it's own fully formed brain and thinking processes ?

Mainly just curious...

~ Seliah

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