A three-eyed python was found on a highway in northern Australia last week, according to wildlife authorities.
Wildlife authorities from the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Service (NTPWS) found the 16-inch baby carpet python last March on the Arnhem Highway near Humpty Doo, just outside Darwin. They described it as “peculiar” because of having one skull with three eye sockets and three functioning eyes.
“It was generally agreed that the eye likely developed very early during the embryonic stage of development,” NTPWS wrote on a Facebook post. “It is extremely unlikely that this is from environmental factors and is almost certainly a natural occurrence as malformed reptiles are relatively common.”
Prof Bryan Fry, a snake expert from the University of Queensland, told BBC News that the natural mutation is a natural part of evolution.
“Every baby has a mutation of some sort – this one is just particularly coarse and misshapen,” he said. “I haven’t seen a three-eyed snake before, but we have a two-headed carpet python in our lab – it’s just a different kind of mutation like what we see with Siamese twins.”
However, dubbed as “Monty the Python” by authorities, the snake died last week at just two months old due to complications.
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