My hometown in Virginia has a really amazing facility called the Wildlife Center of Virginia. They take in injured wildlife and treat them, sometimes providing long term rehabilitation, and sometimes even providing them a permanent home if re-introduction to the wild is not possible. This has always been a really great thing for the local animal lovers- if you find an injured bird or possum or whatever, you can take it right there. They have people who will deliver an injured animal there from areas farther away as well, but it is a lot more of a time-consuming hassle if you are several hours away, and if I was an injured critter, I would have a much better chance of survival if I was nearby a place like this to be sure!
Wildlife Center of Virginia.
I think I'll have to post an article about the Center soon, but for now I want to let you all know about a most unusual creature that was brought in a few days ago, on September 20th...a two headed Copperhead snake! This guy was found up in Northern Virginia, which most of the rest of Virginia has written off as just another part of Washington DC (but that's another story). The amazed discoverer first contacted the Virginia Herpetological Society, who then got ahold of The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. The state herpetologist (snake scientist) J.D. Kleopfer was then sent to pick up the anomalous snake. (I just learned that Virginia has a state herpetologist, what a cool job!) Dr Kleopfer brought the snake into the Wildlife Center, where venomous snake enthusiast Dr. Ernesto Dominguez Villegas, examined the copperhead and took a series of radiographs. Dr. Ernesto, from Mexico, is at the Center doing a Veterinary Internship.
Turns out that this two-headed wonder is just a 2-week-old baby, and that his left head is the more dominant of the two, showing greater activity and response to its environment. From the radiographs it was discovered that the little guy also has two tracheas and two esophaguses (esophagi?) but one heart and one pair of lungs. Although the the left head is more dominant, the Vets speculate that it would be better for the right head to eat food as its throat is the better developed of the two. Both heads can bite and inject venom, however.
Since two-headed snakes are very rare, scientists are working extra hard to keep this fellow alive, and hope to keep it in an educational facility. However, animals with two heads rarely live for very long, so they are learning as much as they can now, in preparation for the copperhead's likely early demise. Check out the video!