FRESNO BEE (California) 29 June 08 Leapin' lizards! Valley couple's two-headed oddity of nature truly is one in a million -- believe it or not. (Diana Marcum)
Photo at URL below: Zak, right, and Wheezie are two male bearded dragon heads on one body. The lizard is just over a year old and is owned by Barbara and Frank Witte, who live just outside of Fowler. They were told Zak-n-Wheezie -- named after a fictional two-headed dragon -- could fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars. But they're not selling. (Craig Kohlruss)
In a small, shingled 100-year-old farmhouse near Fowler, there lives a two-headed, bearded dragon lizard.
This month Zak-n-Wheezie celebrated their first birthday, making them possibly the longest-living two-headed, bearded dragon lizard on record, and landing owners Barbara and Frank Witte in a "Ripley's Believe it or Not!" cartoon.
"That was amazing to me," Frank Witte says. "My grandpa's dream came true. He wanted one of his grandsons to get his name in print. And there it was."
When Zak-n-Wheezie were younger, the Wittes laid low to make sure no one searching for an oddity would find their one-in-a-million (well, actually, statistically speaking, two-in-a-million) pet.
"There were numerous circus sideshow people looking for me," Barbara Witte says. "But I'm not looking to get them in the sideshow world."
Frank's brother did some research and told the Wittes not to sell Zak-n-Wheezie for anything less than a million dollars -- that there were people out there who would pay that much to eat the Wittes' pet.
"There are people who will pay large amounts to eat a two-headed critter. They think it will give them eternal life," says Frank Witte, shaking his head.
Barbara Witte, 47, says they wouldn't sell their pet (pets?) for a million dollars.
"They would die because Mommy wasn't there. And I'd be broke in a minute. We'd spend the money so fast. Go to Vegas or something. I just couldn't sell them. It's too awesome to have something that no one else has."
Frank, 45, agrees that they don't need a million dollars. He likes their life just the way it is.
"I'm a refrigeration man, so I make pretty good money. I'm a very humble person. I just want my family, my work and a good, cold beer when I get home."
There's an air conditioner in the window and fans throughout the house to keep the home cool, despite the bright, heated bulbs in the lizard aquariums. The Wittes have five or six bearded dragon lizards, depending on whether you count Zak-n-Wheezie as one or two. They also have eight children and grandchildren between them, two cats, a Chihuahua and a huge barn owl that lives in the tree closest to their house.
Junior, a one-headed, bearded dragon lizard, is in the window drying off after a bath in the kitchen sink. Barbara has Zak-n-Wheezie (named after a character in the "Dragon Tales" cartoon) on her shoulder.
The couple say that dragon lizards are cuddly and affectionate ("like puppies" and that each has a distinct personality -- including the separate heads of Zak-n-Wheezie.
"Zak -- he's the right head -- is a little more rambunctious. Wheezie is more easy-going. More happy-go-lucky," says Barbara.
When the two-headed dragon was three weeks old, Barbara says, Wheezie started looking depressed and didn't want to eat.
"I thought about how we always called them Zak-n-Wheezie. Zak always came first. So the whole family started calling them Wheezie and Zak, and I'll be darned if it didn't work. He snapped out of it."
Now they refer to each head by its own name: Wheezie when they're addressing Wheezie, Zak when they're addressing Zak.
"They are two lizards with one body, not one lizard with two heads," says Frank.
Four months ago they bought their first computer so they could better research bearded dragon lizards and correspond with other dragon-lizard lovers. Online, they have shared photos of their grandson Freddy's kindergarten class oohing and ahhing over Zak-n-Wheezie, and X-rays of the dragon lizard's shared organs.
Zak-n-Wheezie received birthday cards from as far away as Canada from people the Wittes met online or at herpetology shows. ("They're like home shows, only for reptiles," says Frank.)
They keep the cards (including one signed by Nigel Marvin of Animal Planet fame) in a quilted photo album handmade by Frank's grandmother.
They came to breeding bearded dragon lizards inadvertently. Five years ago Frank was working in a sheet-metal shop, and the owner had a bearded dragon lizard that sat in a cage ignored. Barbara felt sorry for Rocky and said she was taking him home. The lizard's owner told her that was fine, Rocky could count as Frank's Christmas bonus.
They got another lizard to keep Rocky company, and the creatures multiplied. Indeed, Rocky -- the father of Zak-n-Wheezie -- was still siring baby bearded dragon lizards well past the age when most lizards stop mating.
"Rocky was a real stud. R.I.P.," says Frank.
In order to keep Zak-n-Wheezie and their other lizards well-fed, the Wittes have started raising a Pakistani breed of cockroaches. They're different from native cockroaches; they prefer to eat fresh fruit and can't survive in the San Joaquin Valley. The couple also raise silkworms and superworms -- the larvae of Zophobas morio, a species of darkling beetle.
Zak-n-Wheezie can't catch their food as easily as a one-headed lizard. "I have to smash the cockroaches a little and feed it to them with the tweezers," Barbara says.
Technically, since the two heads share a body, it doesn't matter which head eats, but Barbara is scrupulously even-handed at feeding time, so that neither Zak nor Wheezie feels left out.
Barbara, a stay-at-home mother, carries Zak-n-Wheezie on her shirt much of the day.
"She loves that little thing. She carries it around on her lapel," says Lowell Peterson, who lives across the street in the rural neighborhood of seven houses.
Peterson says the two-headed lizard is, if not cute, at least not "wrong-looking."
"It's not freaky like a fifth teat on the udder of a cow, or something like that," he says. "It looks like it was meant to be that way. It has good composition."
Frank and Barbara think Zak-n-Wheezie is/are adorable. They point out the dark speckles and sunburst eyelid rims.
Their youngest son, 10-year-old Richard, comes home from summer school, opening and closing the refrigerator door with a slam and sighing with exasperation at his parents showing off their two-headed lizard.
"They pay more attention to Zak-n-Wheezie than they do me," he complains.
But his mother hands him the two-headed lizard and he puts it on his shoulder and smiles.
"It is cool," he says. "Zak-n-Wheezie makes my family feel like we're special."
Valley couple's two-headed oddity of nature