'Extremely rare' two-headed snake found in backyard

Incredible images have emerged of a two-headed snake that was found by a resident in their backyard.

Virginia Wildlife Management and Control, in the US, uploaded photos of the copperhead snake and its two heads to Facebook, labelling the reptile “extremely rare”.

In one image the snake appears to be shedding its skin.

Many Facebook users were shocked by the photos, with one woman commenting they were “super cool”.

Others had questions about which head attacks and which one eats, to which Wildlife Control responded: “Both”.

Some were just overwhelmed by the thought of a two-headed serpent.

“Nope, one head is one too many,” one woman wrote.

According to an article published in National Geographic, two-headed snakes lead difficult lives in the wild.

University of Tennessee herpetologist Gordon Burghardt, who has studied two-headed snakes, said the heads often fight over which one will swallow prey, which makes them “highly vulnerable to predators”.

“They also have a great deal of difficulty deciding which direction to go, and if they had to respond to an attack quickly they would just not be capable of it,” he said.

The heads also fight in captivity and might try to eat each other.