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Two-headed corn snake

Something that I have not heard of yet is a 2 header breeding. I have seen and heard of quite a few 2 headers like some of you have. But I have not ever heard of any have babies. I know if I had a 2 header I would be trying to produce more lol. They are just so cool I think. Good luck with yours.
 
To me a two headed snake attractive is to the eye and neat to see, but I don't think I'd like to start a project to try and breed 2 headed snakes. Because really its a deformity, right? I wouldn't want to willingly produce deformed snakes. JMO. What's everyone else think? We may need to move this so we don't hijack the OP's thread.......
 
Reptileman81 said:
Something that I have not heard of yet is a 2 header breeding. I have seen and heard of quite a few 2 headers like some of you have. But I have not ever heard of any have babies. I know if I had a 2 header I would be trying to produce more lol. They are just so cool I think. Good luck with yours.
Click to expand...

There was a zoo that had a 2 headed colubrid female that laid eggs. Thelma-and-Louise at the San Diego zoo.
 
Yeah I forgot about Thelma-and-Louise. From what I recall the eggs hatched all normal looking snakes. Non with any signs of 2 heads.
 
So...nobody has addressed the issue of cohabbing..... :D ;)

Longevity of previously mentioned instances seems to
1) minimize the "stress theory" of early mortality, and
2) maximize the theory that anatomy preventing cannibalism may be more of a single significant factor than previously thought.
 
The way that a two headed snake is produce is from the embryo that was spitting in two but did not do it fully. If it had then you would have identical twins but since it didn't that is what gives a two headed snake. So unfortunately there is no way to actively produce a two headed snake it is just something that happens. Now if a snake or any other animal carries the gene to throw twins then they are not identical because the came from 2 different embryo's. So really the only thing that you can do is hope with each clutch.
 
wow. I wonder if you bred two two headers together if that might increase the chance of producing a two header? You know by propagating the tendency to twin? Because its the ability to produce twins that would increase the chance of getting a two header so . . .my reasoning would be that if you breed for twinning in essence you would be also breeding for two headers since it is twinning that causes it. Does that make any sense??
 
There are two kinds of twinning -- monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (nonidentical). They both have some heritability in humans, but not Mendelian single gene heritability. They are not inherited together, but one or the other, so breeding for twinning wouldn't help unless you were breeding for monozygotic twinning. Those are the ones where a single fertilized egg splits into 2 embryos. And if they don't split completely, you get a conjoined twin, like a bicephalic. Pretty darn horrible IMHO but also embryologically interesting. Breeding for dizygotic twinning would result in lots of tiny hatchlings per clutch but all of them normally formed. If they got started eating OK, this would be OK. Breeding for incompletely separated hatchlings is just wrong IMHO. I think the occasional accident is interesting, and I wish anyone who hatches one well in raising it, because if it survives, thrives, eats & grows, it's not suffering horribly. The reason I think aiming to get them is wrong is because too many of them will NOT do well and will suffer until either they die or the breeder puts them down. Ick.
 
Honestly I was theorizing more than anything. i doubt I will ever have a snake that was a twin, is that info even disclosed when they are sold? As I know even twins are rare I have yet to see that kind of info listed when a snake was for sale. It would be very interesting from a scientific point of view to test out a theory like that but as you state not very ethical. But the thought of it is very intriguing.
 
I don't think that it is disclosed most of the time. I had twins but they are identical so they would not pass that gene off but the store that sells my babies said that they wouldn't advertise it. But I have decided that I am going to keep them so it really doesn't matter.
 
carnivorouszoo said:
wow. I wonder if you bred two two headers together if that might increase the chance of producing a two header? You know by propagating the tendency to twin? Because its the ability to produce twins that would increase the chance of getting a two header so . . .my reasoning would be that if you breed for twinning in essence you would be also breeding for two headers since it is twinning that causes it. Does that make any sense??
Click to expand...

That makes perfect sense. That is pretty much what I was saying and thinking. I just did not explain the whole thing cause it was my idea .:flames:

Now I need a new project:dancer:
 
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