Cobra snake with two heads filmed in China
They say two heads are better than one, but perhaps not in the case of this mutant two-headed cobra discovered in China. A snake breeder, who is known only as Mr Huang, found the baby Chinese cobra on his farm in Yulin, southern China, ten days ago. He said the creepy-looking snake is still alive and growing, even though it does not eat or drink, reported the People's Daily Online.
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I doubt it will survive, if you look at where its connected, it would appear that based on normal snake morphology, they have separate hearts, but shared lungs. now the problem is also that its only got one shared stomach, and its unknown how the separate gullets lead to the stomach. it could be that only one head is able to deliver the prey to the stomach, whereas it could cause rupturing or simply rot inside the throat of the other head, which would most likely be fatal without surgery. most polycephalic snakes that survive the first month are attached much farther up at the neck, with a shared well formed gullet and heart and entrance to the stomach and much less maneuverability of the heads so they physically cannot bite each other.
The aggression and venom is also another problem, with a venomous snake they need to take precautions when handling it. They would need thick snake fang proof gloves that go up their arms, and snake sticks, and the risk and precautions only increase as it gets larger. When the heads cause aggression and they start fighting there isn't much they can safely do. contrary to popular belief cobra venom does still have some effect on other cobras of the same species. I would need to see the X-rays and put it on a light table before i could estimate if surgically removing the side attached head would increase the chance of the other head being able to survive instead of having both heads die together.
Being that this is China, I guess I should be happy the person that found it wasn't the kind that would kill it for being an omen, or put in some "magical' "medical" "traditional" soup or kill it and dry it out to use as a trinket.
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