Turtles

Meet Jekyll & Hyde - extremely rare baby twin turtles - who share a shell and are now being studied by amazed scientists on Long Island.

The conjoined diamondback turtles, barely bigger than a thumbnail, were found 12 days ago at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Queens, said Hofstra University Associate Professor of Biology Russell Burke.

Jekyll & Hyde "is a really weird animal" with six legs, two heads, two tails and one shell, he said.
"You can't look at this guy and not be amazed. He's pretty cool."
Chemical pollution could be responsible for the mutation, but the most likely explanation is "it happened completely naturally - because every reproduction event is a toss of the dice," Burke said.

A double-headed tortoise weighing only 17g (6 ounces) was recently found in Wuwei, Anhui Province, China.

Chinese scientists were shocked to discover a rare Mediterranean spur-thighed, two-headed tortoise among a shipment of baby tortoises ordered from a local farm where a worker was said to have bought it from a fisherman some two months ago.

They are currently studying this creature that is in good health and is being cared for by the scientists conducting the research.

Initially worried that the tiny mutant reptile would not survive, their fears have been allayed by the fact that in comparison to its siblings, which are all developing at a steady and very normal rate of growth at their home at the Water World Aquatic Farm in the town of Anhui in eastern China, this little baby is thriving and eating twice as much!

“We got it two weeks ago and it’s growing fast, probably because it can eat twice as fast as the others. It’s very rare to see a turtle with two heads, and we plan to keep it and raise it carefully for future research,” said Jimmy Hu, a Water World spokesman.

Is that old axiom about two heads being better than one really true?
Only time and possibly turtles will tell.