SALISBURY POST (N Carolina) 24 August 10 Rare two-headed snake emerges (Karissa Minn)
For some, it may be the stuff of nightmares.
But for Salisbury naturalist and snake collector Mike Lambert, his two-headed snake is a “dream come true.”
Lambert said the snake hatched last Wednesday from a clutch of 18 eggs. Each snake cuts a small hole in its shell and sticks its head through the opening. When Lambert noticed that there were two little heads poking out of one of the eggs, he began watching it more closely.
“I assumed it was twins, because that happens fairly commonly,” he said. “But the more I watched it, the more I saw the heads always moved in sync, and I got to suspecting that it was a two-headed snake.”
By midnight, Lambert’s curiosity had gotten the better of him, and he opened the egg slightly to find out for sure. Sure enough, it was a snow corn snake with two heads.
The young snake came out of the egg on its own around midday Thursday, having fed enough on the egg sac to sustain it for nearly two weeks.
Two-headed snakes are quite rare. They form when twins that develop in one egg fail to separate. They often have trouble eating and do not survive more than a few months, Lambert said.
“If they live and eat and thrive, they become quite famous, normally,” he said.
What about his newly-hatched snow corn snake? Lambert said survival depends on what other abnormalities the snake may have, but right now it appears to be healthy and may have a good chance. The telling point will be next week, when the reptile will shed its skin for the first time and be ready to eat.
“I do expect this one to try to eat with both heads,” Lambert said. “It has two brains, and it has all of the sense organs, like the tongue, which it uses mainly to find food.”
The snake already has developed a unique, hesitating pattern of movement — as if the heads are alternating control of their shared body.
“You can tell that they’re trying to decide sometimes who’s going to choose the direction at any given time,” Lambert said.
The five-inch-long, pencil-thin reptile has very light pink and white coloring and pink eyes. Corn snakes are native to the Southeast, Lambert said. This one’s unusual coloring is the result of a certain genetic pairing.
Its parents are albino corn snakes that lack black or brown pigmentation. Lambert said both parents also carry a recessive gene that produces snakes without red, yellow or orange pigmentation. Their offspring inherited both.
Growing up, Lambert wanted to work in herpetology, which is the study of reptiles and amphibians.
“When I was a kid, I just had a fascination with snakes,” Lambert said. “My mom was very supportive, and she would let me catch snakes in the summer and keep them in aquariums.”
That interest was put on hold, though, and he ended up working in the textile business with his family for 30 years. After being laid off in 2003, Lambert got a job at the nature center at Dan Nicholas Park, where he helps maintain the reptile collection. Lambert also maintains a collection of his own, which currently contains 150 snakes, at his Salisbury home. He said his wife, Gaynell, supports his passion and has even taken one of the snakes to Vacation Bible School for a demonstration.
This has been Lambert’s first successful breeding and hatching season, he said. His home business is called Dunns Mountain Reptiles.
“I’ve actually been selling babies to folks that want to keep a corn snake in the aquarium,” Lambert said.
If it survives, the two-headed snake will stay with Lambert, he said — unless a particularly good offer comes along. He said healthy, grown snakes with two heads are quite valuable, and one expert estimated his snake was worth between $8,000 and $10,000.
“It’s like a dream come true,” he said, “for a herp nut like me.”
Rare two-headed snake emerges