Reptile & Amphibian Forums

A couple of days ago, I noticed my clutch of albino Honduran milk snakes (L. t. hondurensis) was pipping. I brought the eggs in the house and put them on the dinner table so I could keep a closer eye on them. However, I have stayed so busy over the last couple of days that I must admit I hadn't paid too much attention to them. I finally decided to dig through the clutch to see how they were doing and was startled by an amazing sight.

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www.sunshineserpents.com

Wow! pretty cool. I am sure this is not common. Can they make it to adulthood with two heads? i hope so.

Several two headed snakes have popped up over the years. Many have made it to adulthood and I know of a couple that have lived to quite an old age. This has got to be one of the prettiest two-headed snakes to ever ever pop up though. Albino hondos already have the "Wow" factor going for them with your typical layman.
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www.sunshineserpents.com

Pretty crazy Daniel!..

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

serpentinespecialties.webs.com

Wow Daniel, that is crazy! Pretty cool. keep us posted on its progress.

Dave
DNS Reptiles

I agree, totally awesome Daniel!! Nice looking animal to boot. I hope the snake does well and thrives. Man, you must have a lot going on because when I have snakes close to hatch I can't wait to see them.

Joe

Joe,
Near the beginning of the season I eager anticipate my first babies poking out. However, after hatching hundreds of babies and getting this late in the season, the enthusiasm does wear off just a bit. This snake is a good lesson for why you should eagerly anticipate the hatching of each clutch!
Daniel
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www.sunshineserpents.com

I've EVER seen!

Hold on to it!

Very VERY nice...hope it is OK internally.

Congrats!

-Rusty

Thanks! Here are a couple more photos. My wife literally squealed when she saw it for the first time.

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www.sunshineserpents.com

It would be interesting to see what an X-ray would look like. I bet two headed water turtles are more common, I have seen a few of those around. The two heads are pretty long. Sometimes aren't they just joined right a the base of the head?

I have to agree that is the best looking tuning fork snake I have ever seen. It is also cool how low the connection is on the body. The ones I have seen pics of have the connection right at the base of the heads. Yours is MUCH cooler. Looks healthy to me too, feeding time should be a trip!!! Please take pics of that and post it if you can Daniel

Joe

I have a Honduran pair that throws 2 headed snakes once in a while, like every other year. Most are joined higher up the neck which doesnt look as good and also seems to hinder feeding. Out of 10 snakes born, only 2 have lived past 1 year, and both looked more like this Amel in terms of neck length.
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Scott MacLeod
2.6 Snow Hondurans
1.1 Aberrant Snow Hondurans
2.4 Aberrant Hondurans
1.3 Aberrant Tangerine Hondurans
1.2 Aberrant Hypo Hondurans
0.1 Aberrant Hybino Honduran
1.3 Extreme Hypo VP
1.1 Tricolor Hypo VP
1.3 Hypo E Sinaloan
1.0 Het Hypo E & Amel Sinaloan
0.1 Amel het Hypo E and Splotched
1.1 Albino Striped Sinaloan
2.7 Striped Splotched Sinaloan
1.2 Poss Het T pos Sinaloan
2.2 T pos Sinaloan

Truly amazing snake and pictures. Thanks for sharing!
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www.Bluerosy.com

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Wow! i agree with everyone else. The good part is that it made it through the hatching process and appears to be nice and strong. I had a two-headed honduran 2 years ago that failed to make it out of the egg. I think it drowned at the very end as it was big and nice looking in every other way. Hope it survives and does well for you. It looks like maybe it will.

--Dennis

Very cool Daniel... Thats a good looking double header.
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Mike
KingPin Reptiles
www.kingpinreptiles.com

Very cool! It (they?) got out of the egg alive and appears healthy, so that already puts them in the top 5% of all dicephalic snakes. This gaigeae I produced a few years ago was in the unlucky 95% that die before or shortly after hatching due to internal deformities.

You should contact Van Wallach at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, especially if you live in the Boston area and can visit the museum. He's an expert on two-headed snakes, and a really cool and interesting guy to talk to. Most of his collection is preserved specimens, but he has a dicephalic Eastern milksnake that was found in Maine. The picture below is from 2007, but I saw it again last year at a reptile show in Massachusetts, so as far as I know, it's still alive and healthy.

Van Wallach at Harvard MCZ

on just what an outstanding specimen of a two-headed snake your little beauty is and simply ask...

Do there seem to be any "arguments" as to just who's in charge of the body? Do you feed... I guess both of them... at the same time to avoid each trying to swallow the same prey item and perhaps each other in the process? Silly questions perhaps but both heads look equally developed so perhaps both brains are as well... could lead to some fairly comical observations during the course of it's life.

Should be a breeze to raise it up if it's even half as healthy as it looks... a fine looking animal... keep us posted on how things go!

Gerry

I bumped into this abstract today that I thought might be of interest to you and Dan:

A Simple Method Of Preventing Self-Inflicted Injury When Feeding a Dicephalic California Kingsnake

Donal M. Boyer, Associate Curator and Brett Baldwin, Senior Keeper, San Diego Zoo, San Diego, CA

Dicephalism is known to occur in chelonian, squamate and crocodilian orders. The occurrence of dicephalic reptiles, in particular the condition referred to as derodidymus form of duplication, is most common in snakes. In the derodidymus condition the vertebral column is bifurcated in the cervical vertebral region. In 1995, we obtained a captive born dicephalic California kingsnake approximately three months old. Initially only one of the heads would readily accept prey. In time the other head began to feed. In general, two to three, live, neonatal, laboratory mice were placed in the enclosure and were eaten during the night. However with time it became apparent that there was enough flexibility in the bifurcate spines to allow the heads to bite one another when offered food, or if prey scent was detected on the body after a feeding episode. In the fall of 1996, the fighting became severe enough that unsupervised feeding was discontinued, and a new technique was utilized. A small circle of medium density foam rubber, 10 mm. thick by 25 mm. in diameter, with a 6 mm central hole, was slipped over one of the snake's heads just prior to feeding. The bottom edge of the circle contacting the ground was flat. Prey was then offered to the head without the collar. This foam collar was kept on 30 minutes after feeding. Once the collar was on and the other head began to feed, no further supervision was required. The collar was alternated between heads weekly. With each successive shed the appearance of the skin at the trauma site had improved and now the scars are almost gone. As the snake grew it became necessary to place an additional collar on the head which was not fed.

http://www.arav.org/
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http://www.waffahousereptiles.com

That is one of the best looking two headed snakes I've ever seen. Apart from being gorgeous colors, the heads aren't stuck at the chins or some weird position. Congratulations!
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
Jorge Sierra

My Site > www.Sierrasnakes.com

I saw that snake in a news article. Beautiful animal. Best of luck with him/her. Mike Panichi
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Honesty is my only policy
www.mikepanicreptiles.com