This month's Oddity:

Two-headed rat snake found in a Texas backyard

WACO, Texas, October 4, 2016 (UPI) -- A two-headed snake was taken into a Texas zoo after a local woman discovered it slithering through her backyard.

The Cameron Park Zoo shared photos of the rare snake as zoo workers began the process of preparing it to be placed in an exhibit.

"We have gotten the rat snake to eat and it seems to be doing well," the zoo wrote. "Snakes have a mandatory 90 day quarantine, so it will be a while until it goes on exhibit."

Zoo amphibian and reptile care supervisor Brian Henley told the Waco Tribune that the two-headed snake can be compared to conjoined twins and said staff would only feed one head.

"In speaking with people who have raised two-headed snakes, typically one head eats while the other head drinks," he said. "This snake is still young, so we will monitor it every feeding time."

According to Henley, a McLennan County resident found the 8-inch-long rat snake while walking her dog.

"Her dog found it, and it was probably just recently hatched. It's probably only about 6 to 8 weeks old now," he said. "She brought it in, and we were really surprised by it, because as long as I've been here, we've never had a two-headed animal at this zoo. This is pretty exciting for us."

The zoo plans to determine the sex of the snake in the coming days and will hold a contest to name each of the heads.

Other two-headed animals:

See a previous The Horror Zine page about a two-faced cat HERE

Polycephaly is the condition of having more than one head. The term is derived from the Greek poly- (Greek: "πολύ") meaning "multiple" and kephalē- (Greek: "κεφάλη") meaning "head". A polycephalic organism may be thought of as one being with a supernumerary body part, or as two or more beings with a shared body.

Two-headed animals (called bicephalic or dicephalic) and three-headed (tricephalic) animals are the only type of multi-headed creatures seen in the real world, and form by the same process as conjoined twins from monozygotic twin embryos.

In humans, there are two different forms of twinning that can lead to two heads being supported by a single torso. In dicephalus parapaghus dipus, the two heads are side by side. In craniopagus parasiticus, the two heads are joined directly to each other, but only one head has a functional torso. Survival to adulthood is rare, but does occur in some forms of dicephalus parapagus dipus.

Extremely Rare Two-Headed Baby Born in Indonesia

August 11, 2016: Conjoined twins are already rare, but two heads being born on the same body is one of the most unusual occurrences. An unnamed baby girl in Indonesia was born with the condition, which can cause many difficulties.

The little girl was born with two arms and two legs but has two heads.

Footage shows both mouths appear to be crying normally – a sign everything's fine after birth.

Weighing about nine pounds, she was delivered at the Ibn Sina General Hospital in the eastern part of Indonesia.