Miraculous two-headed turtle survives despite all odds: A lot of challenges to overcome

Slow and heady wins the race.A two-headed turtle in New Jersey is being hailed a miracle after beating the odds and surviving past infancy despite its rare deformity.“I am going to do whatever it takes to keep these guys happy and alive,” owner Joseph Morena told Caters News Service of the reptilian anomaly.He said his friend had hatched the dual-domed anomaly and had no idea how to care for it.So Morena decided he’d be up for the challenge.“Obviously I had to take him,” declared the New Jerseyan, who explained that raising the unique creature was difficult given the low birth and survival rates of multi-noggined critters.Polycephaly — having multiple heads — is generally caused by malformation of a developing embryo, due to either genetic or environmental factors.

Although most commonly observed in turtles and snakes the affliction has been documented in every critter from fish to pigs.Two heads are not better than one in the animal kingdom as the dueling noodles often compete for resources.Indeed, Morena’s two-for-one turtle was double the trouble with two mouths that refused to eat.“I continued to offer food but they showed no interest, I began to get really worried,” he lamented.Salvation came after the larger of the two heads finally began to eat, seemingly inspiring the smaller one to follow suit.However, Moreno, who documented raising the turtle in a viral clip for his over 180,000 followers on YouTube, said the saga was far from over as the twin craniums caused coordination problems.He recalled waking up one morning to find the conjoined creature flipped on its back and unresponsive in the water.

“I was almost certain they had passed,” recounted Moreno, who frantically performed gentle chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth.Moreno breathed a sigh of relief when they recovered almost two hours later.“Somehow, they managed to almost drown in half an inch of water,” he said.Interestingly, the turtle’s locomotion problems stemmed ...