- Bite ‘kills thousands a year’
A rare, but deadly two-headed snake was spotted in India last week. The 11cm-long (4in) reptile was found outside a home by shocked local Dimple Shah in the Kalyan district of Maharashtra State on August 7.
Snake catcher Prem Aher arrived with forestry officials who captured the Russel viper and took it to a conservation facility, Southwest News reported.
Russel vipers have one of the most dangerous venoms in the world. The team said the snake ”was taken for further research and paper work”.
They added: ”The snake is alive and being kept in safe environment.
“Due to the Forestry Department protocol, we can’t disclose the location of snake right now.”
Indian Forest Services officer Susanta Nanda said such genetic abnormalities lead to low survival rates in the wild.
He explained why the venomous snake was so dangerous to people.
Susanta added: ”The two-headed Russell’s viper was rescued in Maharashtra.
“The Russell’s viper is far more dangerous than most poisonous snakes because it harms you even if you survive the initial bite.”
Despite being one of the deadliest snakes in the world, the two-headed Russell’s viper could be vulnerable in the wild due to its genetic abnormality.
Each head, which is approximately 0.8 inches in length, could follow its own separate instincts to catch prey.
According to the University of Michigan, Russell’s vipers are “one of the most dangerous snakes” in Asia and account for “thousands of deaths each year.”
Victims experience a wide swath of symptoms, ranging from pain to vomiting to dizziness to kidney failure.
Two-headed snakes aren’t all that uncommon, and they’ve been spotted in the wild a handful of times before.
The heads are known to fight each other over food as they don’t realise that it’s all going to the same digestive system.
Usually one head is more developed than the other so makes more of the decisions. Keeping a two-headed snake alive can be difficult if they won’t cooperate.
Last year, a double-headed serpent was found in a forest in New Jersey and had two independently working heads.
That meant the hellish creature had four eyes and two hissing tongues.