Two loggerheads are better than one.
Park workers and volunteers were taken aback after discovering an extremely “rare” two-headed turtle while perusing the shore in South Carolina.
“Edisto Beach State Park sea turtle patrol had a very rare find,” described the South Carolina State Parks Facebook page of the reptilian double-header, which they discovered while performing an inventory on sea turtle nests Wednesday, July 21.
They wrote that they found three live loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings still in a nest chamber, “but one hatchling in particular stood out because it had two heads!”
And while other two-faced sea turtles have surfaced in South Carolina before, this was “a first for the patrol team at Edisto Beach State Park,” per the Facebook post, which added that the animal’s double noggins were “the result of a genetic mutation.”
Indeed, the affliction — also known as polycephaly — is generally caused by malformation of a developing embryo, due to either genetic or environmental factors, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
The volunteers have since released the creature back into the ocean, where its odds of making it are unclear. Alas, two heads are not better than one in the animal kingdom: dual-domed critters don’t usually live long or reproduce as the dueling noodles often compete for resources.
This isn’t the first time a polycephalic critter has reared its heads. In 2019, a double-headed timber rattlesnake rattled residents in New Jersey, while a bifacial billy goat became a worldwide sensation due to its resemblance to the Greek god Janus, after whom it was named.