Officials with the Virginia Wildlife Management and Control took to Facebook to share “extremely rare photos” of a two-headed copperhead snake.

弗吉尼亚野生动物管理和控制部门的官员在Facebook上分享了一张“极其罕见的双头铜斑蛇的照片”。

The snake was spotted in a Woodbridge, Virginia, resident’s backyard. (Virginia Wildlife Management and Control)

这条蛇是在弗吉尼亚州伍德布里奇居民的后院发现的。(弗吉尼亚野生动物管理和控制部门)

“Check out these extremely rare photos of an actual 2-headed copperheadthat was found in someone’s yard in Woodbridge...Cool, huh?” the department captioned the post, which had more than 1,000 shares and 600 reactions as of Friday afternoon.

该部门发帖写道：“看看这些在伍德布里奇某家院子里发现的极其罕见的双头铜斑蛇的照片吧……很酷，对吧？”截至周五下午，该贴的转发量已超过1000次，评论量达到600条。

While some social media users questioned the authenticity of the post, the department assured the photos and video were both very real, according to The Charlottesville Observer.

据《夏洛茨维尔观察者报》报道，尽管有些社交媒体用户质疑帖子的真实性，但该部门保证照片和视频都是真实的。

“Absolutely not a fake! We assure you, it’s very real and was shedding its skin,” the department told the newspaper.

“绝对不是假的！我们向你保证，这是真的，它还在蜕皮呢。”

Two-headed snakes are rare and typically do not survive for long in the wild, according to National Geographic.

据《国家地理》杂志报道，双头蛇很罕见，通常在野外无法存活很长时间。

Though “two heads are better than one" – as the saying goes – the same is not true for snakes. In fact, the raregenetic abnormality can hinder the snake’s ability to catch prey.

俗话说“三个臭皮匠，顶个诸葛亮”，但蛇却不是这样。事实上，这种罕见的基因异常会阻碍蛇捕捉猎物的能力。

“Snakes operate a good deal by smell, and if one head catches the scent of prey on the other's head, it will attack and try to swallow the second head,” National Geographic reported, adding two-head snakes develop similarly to Siamese twins when an embryo does not properly split into two.

《国家地理》杂志报道说：“蛇的嗅觉很灵敏，如果一只头部嗅到了另一只头部猎物的气味，它就会攻击并试图吞下第二只头部。”