Meet the aptly named Medusa, a two-headed albino Honduran milksnake. She was born in captivity just before Halloween 2011, and now calls Ben Siegel Reptiles home. You can own her for a quick $50,000…or you could just watch her eat and drink and marvel at the weirdness of polycephaly.
Medusa was born with two heads splitting her body symmetrically down the middle. She’s bicephalic, meaning that she only has one more head than normal, but it doesn’t make her a mythical beast.
Medusa’s heads were actually once monozygotic, or identical, twins. Identical twins split from one embryo to become two. In Medusa’s case, these twin embryos fused after splitting, resulting in the $50k hydra below.
Although most polycephalic animals don’t live very long lives, there are some documented cases of multi-headed snakes in captivity surviving for years. As of 2014 at least, Medusa is still alive and slitherin’, eating two mice at the same time (as long as you make sure the heads don’t fight with each other), and sipping water like the dainty reptile she is.
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IMAGES: Ben Siegel Reptiles