Two-headed python

Two-headed python

No, its not Medusas new pet, this snake is alive and kicking!

A two-headed python exists in the southern German city of Villingen-Schwenningen.

The reptile has two spinal cords and two heads, both of which are active, reported ABC News.

The unnamed 300 gram snake, also commonly known as a Ball python, was born about a year ago in the care of reptile expert Stefan Broghammer.

Only one of its two heads does the eating. Otherwise it could be fatal.

If both heads were to eat at the same time, food could get stuck in its esophagus, causing the snake to suffocate.

Broghammer estimates there are five such snakes -- three in the US, one in a Sri Lankan zoo and his own.

Broghammer has called on snake fans to submit names to suit the two-headed creature on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube.

But the dual-headed reptile isn't the first to excite Germans in recent history. "Tom and Jerry" recently greeted visitors at a zoo exhibit in Munich.

This was a two-headed California King Snake in the Swiss traveling reptile exhibition Vivarium.

Born in 1998 on a breeding farm, Tom and Jerry should have been twins from a single fertilised egg.

However, the embryonic division was only partially completed.

Instead of twins, a two-headed snake was born.

Twelve years on, it is remarkable the reptile survived the mutation for so long.

Source: ABC NewsImages: Patrick Seeger/EPA/Landov/AgenciesPublished July 6 2011