Two-headed turtle hatchling discovered in Terengganu

Picture taken from Lang Tengah Turtle Watch's FB page.

KUALA TERENGGANU: A group of volunteers from Lang Tengah Turtle Watch (LTTW) made an amazing discovery on Tuesday (Aug 30) when they found a newly-hatched dicephalic green sea turtle at a nesting site in Tanjong Jara Resort, Dungun.

LTTW site manager Abidah Zaaba said that in the beginning, when they saw the hatchling trying to push through the sand, they thought it was a normal turtle.

"But after it had completely emerged, we saw that it had two heads,” she told reporters Thursday (Sept 1), adding that the nest contained 110 eggs and a post-emergence inspection found that 89 had hatched.

Abidah said that although another two-headed turtle was discovered last June at the hatchery that opened in 2016, this was the first time a live one was found.

LTTW's Facebook post on the "miracle hatchling" said that dicephalism is an unusual phenomenon in nature.

Nevertheless, it informed that the "the two heads shared a similar morphology and responded differently to external stimuli”.

"Although the turtle's coordination of voluntary movements was distorted, the right head was evidently dominant.

"The facial scales on each head are different, meaning they could be identified as different individuals via (a) photo identification technique."

LTTW also pointed out that "nearly all recorded two-headed animals live for shorter periods than normal individuals".

Rantau Abang Fisheries Research Institute (FRI) director Sharum Yusof said that while normal hatchlings are released into the sea, "unusual finds like a two-headed turtle should be surrendered to the relevant people for caring”.

He said the FRI was told about the discovery and that the turtle is now with the Turtle Conservation and Information Centre (TCIC) in Rantau Abang under the Department of Fisheries (DOF).

LTTW said that as TCIC is just 15 minutes away from their project site, they will be keeping tabs on the hatchling. - Bernama