TORONTO -- A North Carolina woman says she was surprised when she found a young snake inside her home. However, she was shocked when she noticed something unusual about the unexpected reptile.
Taylorsville resident Jeannie Wilson shared a video of the rare reptile on her Facebook page last month. Wilson said she was cleaning up after a games night with friends and family when she spotted the small snake in her sunroom.
"I saw something in the corner of my eye, and I said, 'Lord, that's a snake! The first thing I thought was, 'Oh gosh, something has stepped on you and mashed your head'," Wilson said in an interview with social media intelligence and news agency Storyful.
After taking a closer look at the reptile, Wilson said she realized the snake has two heads.
Wilson nicknamed the snake "Double Trouble" because of its appearance and took it to the Catawba Science Center, approximately 48 kilometres away. She said the snake was "very gentle to handle" and never tried to bite her.
The science centre confirmed it was a non-venomous rat snake and appeared to be around four months old.
Experts at the centre said the snake's two heads are the result of a mutation believed to occur in about one out of every 100,000 rat snakes.
Several days later, Wilson said she received a Facebook message from a snake wrangler who said he wanted to buy the two-headed reptile for his son.
She returned to the science centre the next morning to get the snake back, and then delivered it to its new owner.
Wilson said helping the snake find its forever home "just felt right."
