A REMARKABLE two-headed snake dubbed We is being auctioned on the internet by the World Aquarium with the aim of raising at least $150,000 for community education and environmental programmes in St Louis, Missouri. The reptile, a metre-long albino rat snake (Elaphe obsoleta) has survived for six years thanks to a crash course in table manners.
"We hope she will go to someone who will do more research into how a two-headed snake sees the world," aquarium director Louis Sonnenschein told New Scientist.
Two-headed snakes seldom survive long because of difficulties in feeding. To help We survive, Sonnenschein taught the heads to take turns eating instead of competing for every meal. "At first, we would present the mouse to one head and it would take it, but then the other head would grab it and they'd fight," he says. "So I touched the non-feeding head gently with a cold metal ...