NEW YORK – Today’s lesson is: What goes around comes around. And sometimes it comes with two heads.
Robert Shapiro, of East Village, N.Y., can attest to this. He spends his spare time rescuing unwanted reptiles. And this summer, one of them – a constrictor – gave birth to a bouncing baby boa. With two heads.
It is the only known two-headed boa in the world, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“It’s like a normal boa with a growth along its neck that happens to be a head,” says Shapiro, 46, opening the takeout coffee cup in which he keeps baby Indy, who was born on July 4, along with 27 single-headed siblings.
While her main head functions normally, her auxiliary noggin is just too weird. The eyes move and its tongue flicks, indicating it has its own brain.
But unlike other “normal” two-headed snakes _ and there have been a few in smaller breeds, like the king snake – Indy’s second head doesn’t have a throat.
Head No. 2 is basically kept alive by Head No. 1, the same way your own arms are kept alive by the air and food your head takes in.
“I’ve been around the block,” says Bronx Zoo herpetologist Frank Indiviglio, who has visited Indy. “There are millions of snakes out there. But this is the only one (like this) I’ve ever seen.

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