UCF finds, releases two-headed sea turtle

This one's worth a double take. 

University of Central Florida interns recently found a two-headed baby loggerhead sea turtle in Brevard County.

Loggerheads are know for their massive heads.

But two?

Double-headers are not unheard of and are among a litany of developmental abnormalities this threatened species faces.

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"We often find stragglers in the nest and the two-headed turtle was one such straggler,"  Kate Mansfield, assistant professor and director UCF's Marine Turtle Research Group, said via email. "There are so many eggs laid by sea turtles throughout Florida. It is not uncommon to find unhatched eggs in a nest with embryos that ceased development for a variety of reasons, including developmental issues."

Among the stragglers, the UCF researchers find missing flippers, odd scales on shells, missing eyes and other developmental abnormalities.

Two-headed hatchlings are fairly rare, Mansfield said.  

The likelihood of any hatchling surviving to maturity (25+ years) is low, she added, and those with these developmental anomalies face tougher challenges.

"The other two-headed hatchlings I’ve seen or heard of did not survive long ... I don’t know of any two-headed sea turtle adults. Personally, I’ve never seen one."

The UCF interns found the two-headed hatchling just south of Patrick Air Force Base, about a week ago. They released it the morning they found it, per guidelines of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The two-headed turtle crawled energetically towards the ocean, Mansfield said.

"With any live hatchling, we typically release them," she added. "If the hatchling had been dead, we likely would have saved the specimen, but we don’t have a facility for long-term care or study of hatchlings. And the state prefers that live animals be released."

The cause of the double-headed turtle may be genetic, developmental or environmental, Mansfield said.

"Healthy sea turtle hatchlings at best have a difficult road ahead in terms of early survival rates (a number of things eat them)," she said. 

The interns who encountered the turtle didn’t get samples.

"We are not currently permitted to take hatchling samples, unfortunately," she said.

Contact Waymer at 321-242-3663 or jwaymer@floridatoday.com Follow him on Twitter @JWayEnviro or www.facebook.com/jim.waymer