Two-headed Turtle

A two-headed turtle was recently discovered by a schoolboy in Moriyama:

Named Takara, after the boy who discovered him and meaning “treasure” in Japanese, it is said to be extremely rare for such an animal to be found alive.

Researchers say the turtle’s two heads are unlikely to have been caused by pollution and instead are a result of a natural phenomenon – possibly a conjoined twin birth.

Larger photos can be found at The Sun.

3 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - May 29, 2008 at 9:24 pm

Categories: Odd / Strange Tags: japan, two-headed turtle

shazzb0t

Excellent find. I wonder if he got to keep it in a jar with a twig and a leaf to simulate its natural habitat.
guacamoru

Actually, those two headed turtles are pretty common! For the looks, it is a turtle of the trachemys species that are very popular as pets, one of the member of that species is the trachemys scripta elegans, or the red eared turtle you see in a lot of pet stores in North America, and the trachemys scripta emolli or Nicaraguan slider pretty common in Latin America.

As those turtles are breeded for commercial purposes in massive quantities and without no natural selection playing its role as in the turtle’s natural environment, it is common to see blind (no eyes), cyclops (one eye with the nose covering the other hole), without some set of legs, or as this case, two headed! Among breeders there is even a contest to find the two headed baby turtle of the season!

Well, I don’t breed turtles, but happen to have one Nicaraguan slider turtle since I was 8 years old, so I have quite read about them a little.
guacamoru

Also, it is worth to say that this species is considered a pest in many countries, probably Japan is one of them, as they reproduce incessantly, adapt very quickly (Can even hibernate), are very aggressive in the wild and take away the natural environment of the other local species, like has happened in several parts of Europe.

Two-headed Turtle

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