Biologists got a double treat when they found a two-headed loggerhead sea turtle hatchling on the shores of Hilton Head Island in South Carolina.
The bicephalic hatchling was discovered by a team from the Sea Turtle Patrol Hilton Head Island Tuesday while conducting nest inventory. It was found alive and released into the ocean shortly after.
“We thought we had seen it all during this very busy season on Sea Turtle Patrol,” the group said on Facebook.
“The mutation is more common in reptiles than in other animals, but it is still very rare,” Sea Turtle Patrol staff posted. “As with other live hatchlings found during a nest inventory, this hatchling was released to the ocean.”
They named the two-headed turtle Squirt and Crush, a nod to the Disney movie Finding Nemo.
Staff who discovered the turtle told PEN News that the sea turtle’s right head appeared to govern one flipper, while the left head governed the other.
“There’s a bump that goes down the centre of turtle’s shells and there are two of them here, so they probably each have their own spine,” Amber Kuehn, manager of Sea Turtle Patrol Hilton Head Island, told the news outlet.
With two flippers, however, the turtle couldn’t swim well. Kuehn said the odds of it surviving didn’t look good. “In general, even for the healthy ones, it’s one in a hundred,” she said.
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Source: https://www.geek.com/news/rare-two-headed-sea-turtle-hatchling-discovered-on-south-carolina-beach-1802348/?source
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The Article Was Written/Published By: Stephanie Valera
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