Rare two-headed black rat snake up to 152 cm long, currently living in the Cape Girardeau Nature Reserve.
The Cape Girardeau Nature Conservation Center in Missouri (USA) is currently keeping a very rare two-headed black rat snake in captivity. The animal was found by a boy in the yard of his home in the small town of Delta, Mississippi in 2005.
The fact that this two-headed snake can live up to 17 years is a surprise to scientists. In fact, the survival rate of two-headed snakes is extremely low, only about 1/100 million. Steve Alllain, board member of the British Herpetological Association and snake expert, said the two-headed rat snake was the only one alive today.
Due to having 2 heads and 2 brains, 2-headed snakes often “beat the drums up and down” when moving, only suitable for living in captivity. Difficulty in movement makes this animal easy prey for hawks, skunks or hungry raccoons if living in a natural environment.
The two-headed black rat snake lived for 17 years, surprising scientists.
“Most conjoined baby snakes die shortly after birth. However, I know of other cases where two-headed snakes lived for 20 years. However, in the wild, no two-headed snake has ever been seen alive. up to 17 years,” said snake expert Steve Alllain.
Sharing about how to feed two-headed snakes, Alex Holmes – expert at the Cape Girardeau Nature Conservation Center said: “A normal snake of their size would be able to eat mice easily. However, the conjoined spine of the two-headed snake makes it more difficult to swallow all young mice, except very small ones.
Alex Holmes explained, two snake heads in one body have a competitive instinct when eating, so they have to block the other end of the animal with a drinking cup. After feeding the right head for a while, they continued to feed the left head to ensure that the food passed through the junction down the esophagus without any obstacle causing the animal to “choke”.
“This two-headed snake has the same stomach, but we feed both heads to stimulate their natural instincts,” said Alex Holmes.
According to posted information, 2-headed snakes are born when an individual egg is fertilized and begins to divide into twins but not completely separate. In this case, the developing embryo partially splits at the top but fails to separate at the bottom.
