Snakes, what’s the deal with them? The sad fact of the matter is that no one knows. As is, a snake is essentially just an abundantly jointed finger that holds up a mechanism for venom injection. Slap a second head on one of those bad boys? I don’t even know what to tell you.
The literal two-faced snake (as opposed to say, your mate that’s texting your ex right now) pictured above is a bicephalic copperhead found in a backyard in Virginia earlier this month. The person who found it contacted pest control company Virginia Wildlife Management and Control‘s 24-hour snake identification hotline, whereupon the person who fielded the call identified it (I assume) as being ‘extremely fucked up’.
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In a Facebook post, herpetologist JD Kleopfer said that bicephalic snakes are exceptionally rare due to their short lifespans, because there are just “too many challenges living day to day with two heads“. He’s got a point there, look at this thing try and move around:
A spokesperson for Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro told local news station WTVR that the heads had somewhat asymmetrical development:
It appears as though the left head is more dominant – it’s generally more active and responsive to stimulus. Radiographs revealed that the two-headed snake has two tracheas [the left one is more developed], two esophaguses [the right one is more developed], and the two heads share one heart and one set of lungs. 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.
Kleopfer said that the snake is currently being looked after by a private reptile keeper, with the hope that it would be eventually donated to a zoo of some sort.
Nature is an absolute trip. What the fuck, man.
