Why Are Some Animals Born With Two Heads?
Polycephaly is the medical term for the condition of having more than one head, which animals develop when their “RNAi of the beta-catenin-1 gene caused posterior-facing blastemas to regenerate as heads,” according to MIT’s Department of Biology. That’s the scientific way of saying these animals have a faulty gene that causes their tissue growth to go haywire. This disorder encompasses another condition known as Diprosopus, which is when two faces appear on a single head. A two-faced kitten made headlines in 2008 when it was born with two complete sets of eyes and mouths. Sadly, these creatures often don’t survive for very long after they are born, although there have been some success stories of two-headed snakes surviving in captivity for years.
