Living things are pretty darn good at reproducing successfully. It is something that has been going on since the dawn of life, and it is an essential part of the evolutionary process. While the vast majority of the time one generation can reproduce to create the next without any major issues, sometimes there are problems.

These problems can come in the form of a malformation, and one of the most extreme types of malformation is when something is born with two heads. This typically happens when a single animal is developing and begins the process of splitting to become twins. Something interrupts that split, resulting in one animal with two heads.

While rare, there have been plenty of snakes, lizards, turtles, and even deer that have been documented to have two heads. And now, according to a study published in the journal Biology Letters, there is an example of an ancient reptile fossil that has two yeads.

This reptile is from a Hyphalosaurus, which is a small aquatic animal that lived over 120 million years ago. Researchers have thousands of fossils from this species, but this is definitely the first one to have two heads. The researchers wrote about this, saying:

“Starting from the level of the pectoral girdle, the vertebral column divides into two cervical series, forming two long necks that end in two skulls.”

Unfortunately, it seems that having two heads did not work out very well for this little dinosaur since it died when it was a newborn, or even before it was hatched. This is often the case with severe malformations like this. The fossil shows that it was just 70 millimeters long.

While it may not have been lucky in life, it did get a lot of attention when it was found because it became by far the oldest known fossil of an animal with two heads. Since only a tiny fraction of all animals living in a given time will become fossils, it was extremely unlikely for this animal to not only have had two heads, but then to have become a fossil.

On top of that, it was found at a time when humans are able to properly excavate and preserve the fossils.

With that in mind, it can be said that in death, this was maybe the luckiest little reptile ever.

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