Two Heads, One Turtle

A diamondback terrapin hatchling with two heads turned up at a nesting site on Cape Cod. It weighed 5.2 grams, about a nickel. Staff say the left head was "biting the day he came in." One thumb per head. Eat your whole body weight.

Cape Cod · 1 hatchling · 2 heads

Lefty and Righty share one body.

Tap the left side and Lefty paddles left. Tap the right side and Righty paddles right. Tap both, in turns, to swim straight. Each head has its own appetite. Come up for air.

Target: eat 5.2 g in 60 seconds, the real hatchling's whole weight.

Keys: ← / → or A / L · or give one side to a friend

Odd News Desk17 Sep · reported 29 Sep–1 Oct 2026

What actually happened

Volunteers with Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary found a diamondback terrapin hatchling with two heads at a protected nesting site on Cape Cod. On 17 September it was brought to the Cape Wildlife Center in Barnstable, Massachusetts.
It weighed 5.2 grams, "about as much as a nickel." The condition is called bicephaly: an embryo starts to split, the way twins would, but doesn't separate fully. It has two working heads, four legs and one shell.
According to a veterinary technician, the left head has more personality: it was "biting the day he came in." Both sides are swimming and eating, and staff say "they are behaving normally."
It is rare, but not unheard of. The center says it has "only seen two other turtles like this in the past five years," and Mass Audubon has met five on Cape Cod since the early 2000s. The CEO said they were looking forward to learning everything they can about "these two young turtles."
The plan: watch its appetite, growth and behaviour, and release it to the wild if it's healthy enough. If not, it will likely get a permanent home in captivity.

What the game makes up

The names Lefty and Righty, the controls (one side of the screen per head), the separate tummies, the sulking when one head gets fed more, the blue crab, and the 60-second lunch are ours. The food weights are made up, and no real hatchling eats its body weight in a minute. Real: the two heads, the 5.2 grams, the biting left head, the swimming and eating. When the same center had a two-headed terrapin in 2021, a deep-water swim test showed "the two sides of the turtle can coordinate swimming and can come to the surface to breathe when needed." The "Pick a favourite head" button does nothing. That's on purpose.

Sources

Smithsonian: Two Heads Are Better Than One: Rare, Double-Headed Turtle Hatchling Discovered on Cape Cod (29 Sep 2026) CBS Boston: Two-headed turtle found on Cape Cod in "especially rare case" WBRC: Rare two-headed turtle hatchling found on Cape Cod (30 Sep 2026) Inside Edition: the center's earlier two-headed terrapin and its swim test (Oct 2021)

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Two Heads, One Turtle

Lefty and Righty share one body.

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