Marshall started Googling, and got lucky. First, he found the cell number for the UNL Department of Natural Resource’s resident reptile expert, Dennis Ferraro. And then he learned Ferraro was doing fieldwork in southwest Nebraska, and could pick up the double-headed snake that night on his way home to Lincoln.
Ferraro called it a rare discovery; he’s seen only a few in his 40 years as a herpetologist. And it’s a different mutation than the others, which were divided directly at the back of their heads, at the top vertebrae.
But the snake Marshall found had two distinct necks — covering maybe 10% of its overall length, and as many as 10 vertebrae — before the separate spines come together to share a body.
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“Each head is acting independently,” Ferraro said. “Each head opens its mouth. Each head tries to go a different direction. But it's not really moving very much, because one head starts to go one way, and the other head starts to go the other way, and it’s a draw.”
The professor isn’t sure what caused the mutation, but he has a couple of ideas.
It could have been an embryonic mutation, where the egg started to split into twins at an early stage but then stopped, leaving it with bicephaly — two heads, two necks and one body.
Or it could be the result of what herpetologists call aggregation mating. In the spring, when females come out of hibernation, they mate with multiple males at the same time.
“So it might have been, in this case, that this ovum got hit with two sperms almost simultaneously. I don't know if that would have done it or not, but it's something that could have happened.”
Ferraro estimated the snake is fewer than 10 days old, and would not have lasted long in the wild. But now that he has it safe in the lab, he plans to try to keep it alive, and to study it — starting with an ultrasound, and maybe X-rays.
He also plans to share it with his herpetology students. And when it does die, it will be preserved in alcohol and stored at the university.
But it will also live on in the photos Marshall posted online. He doesn’t mind snakes, but he doesn’t like to post on Facebook.
Still, someone urged him to share a few photos to the Nebraska through the Lens page Sunday, and it took off. Within hours, 3,000 people liked it. By Tuesday, that number was up to 7,600 — and nearly 2,500 people had shared his post.
“Little did I know exactly how much attention that would get.”
Photos, videos: Critters in the streets and yards of Lincoln
WATCH: Coyote in driveway on South 57th in Lincoln
Coyote in trash
Deer
Wildlife near 76th and Van Dorn
Plains leopard frog
Baby owl and wood ducks
Turtle on South 86th Street
Coyote off Sawgrass Drive
Wilson's phalarope (female)
Ducks on Rancho Road
Coyote
Woodchuck
Political ducks?
Pioneers Park ducks
Golf wildlife
Upton Grey Lane and Thompson Creek
Ducks in yard
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Turkey time
Heron on Bowling Lake
White moth on Runza drive-thru on West O in May 2019
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Bobcat
Deer next to O Street
Pair of Cooper's Hawks
Fox
Watch: Fox plays in the snow
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Opossum
Raccoons sharing a meal
Fox catches squirrel at capitol
Video: Red fox in Lincoln
Armadillo in Lincoln
Snake on deck
Robin's eggs
Monarch caterpillar on milkweed
Young opossum hiding in a clay tile
Goslings
Geese
Snake
Ducks
Coyote
Backyard critter
Pelicans
Turkey
Video: Coyote playing with dog
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Leftovers
Lincoln-area wildlife
Deer
Foxes
Turkeys
Grasshoppers
Critter
Squirrel
Raccoon
Critters
Critters
Critters
Critters
Critters
Critters
Butterfly
Dragonfly
Deer in Yard
Bald Eagle at Branched Oak Lake
Baby Owls in Tree
County Fair Chicken
Sunken Gardens
Red-tailed hawk
Birds of winter
Turkey
"And they're off"
Baby robins
Audubon Tour bird and peanuts
Rabbit
Urban deer sighting
Pelican
Robins
Brown-headed nuthatch
Foxes in backyard
Mourning doves
Watch Now: Northeast Lincoln visitor
Coopers Hawk backyard 27th and Lake
Vultures on William Street
Coyote
Hummingbird
Damselfly
Sleeping red fox
Red-bellied woodpecker
Squirrel
Fox at 8th and E in Lincoln
Fox at Capitol Beach Lake
Deer
Opossum
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