Featured Image Credit: UCF Marine Turtle Research Group/Facebook
Researchers at the University of Central Florida were walking along a beach in Brevard County when they spotted something extremely unusual among all the emerging turtle hatchlings.
Two interns realized that a little straggler was hidden in the sand, a two-headed baby loggerhead, barely large enough to fit into a human palm. The research group shared a photo of the hatchling on its Facebook page Thursday, noting that its staff had “never seen anything quite like it.”
According to the researchers who discovered this rare little guy, the turtle was “alive and energetic when we encountered it,” the lab wrote in a comment, adding the hatchling was released into the ocean after taking a few photos. “Hatchlings with these abnormalities typically have other developmental problems and don’t survive very long. But we gave it a chance.”
But we’re rooting for this little two-headed cutie!