29 April 2011

Bicephaly

As it says in Wikipedia, "The red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans) is a semiaquatic turtle belonging to the family Emydidae. It is a subspecies of the pond slider. It is the most popular pet turtle in the United States and also popular in the rest of the world. It is native only to the southern United States, but has become established in other places because of pet releases."

What Wikipedia doesn't mention is that very, very occasionally this animal species will produce two-headed offspring. Both heads can often function and feed and these freak creatures can sometimes live to maturity.

After zooming up the modernistic Kula Lumpur Tower last weekend, I descended to the tower's base and there in the shadow of that four hundred metre high telecommunications structure, I entered Animal Kingdom where, much to my amazement, I spotted a two-headed red ear slider turtle. I never knew such creatures existed. I am sorry my photo is a bit blurry. It was taken through smeared glass. Here's another by someone else:-

4 comments:

  1. That is really weird!

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  2. Have you ever contemplated what it must be like to live like that? You would never be alone. Sometimes that could be good. Sometimes it would be bad.

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  3. How freaky!! These slider turtles have slipped into Australia and are not welcome... I have not heard of any two headed ones, though that variation may just turn up in Tasmania one day. I am confident no one in Tasmania reads your blog and I therefore I can take a cheap shot at Tasmanians without any nasty repercussions.

    A very badly behaved Ms Soup.

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  4. JENNY Yes. I thought so too.
    JAN B You and I could try it for a week or so. We'd both get wrapped up in a quilt cover and crawl around the house like a great big two-headed turtle. I could do the eating for both of us and you would erm... deal with the aftermath of eating.
    ALPHABET SOUP Actually several Tasmanians read this blog and you are now on their hit list! That will teach you for being so "badly behaved"!

    ReplyDelete

Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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