Two-headed sea turtle hatches on South Carolina beach. Odds are against it

A two-headed sea turtle was found crawling out of a nest days ago in South Carolina.

It happened at Edisto Beach State Park, about 45 miles south of Charleston, and photos show the hatchling was no bigger than a Chips Ahoy cookie.

The “rare find” was made as a survey crew dug into the nest to see how many eggs had hatched, according to a Facebook post.

“On occasions (we) also find live hatchlings,” the park wrote in its post. “This past Wednesday, patrollers and volunteers found three alive loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings. ... One hatchling in particular stood out because it had two heads!”

The turtle has little chance of survival, but marine researchers make it a point not to intervene in such cases.

“After a few photos, this hatchling, along with the two others found, were released into the ocean,” officials said.

Edisto Beach State Park has had a loggerhead sea turtle program since 1982 and averages about 80 nests a season, according to a Facebook page. The 1,255-acre park includes 1.5 miles of beach, which is where sea turtles dig their nests.

Thousands of sea turtles hatch each year on beaches in the southeastern U.S. and it’s “estimated one in 1,000 to 10,000 will survive to adulthood,” according to the Sea Turtle Conservancy.

The genetic mutation of two heads has been documented before in South Carolina, including one found in Hilton Head Island in August 2019. Records show South Carolina has seen as many as two sea turtles a year born with the mutation, state officials say.

“We are not aware of any records of two-headed adults, however,” Erin Weeks of the state’s Marine Resources Division told McClatchy News.

“The odds are heavily stacked against hatchlings making it to adulthood, and unfortunately those odds are even lower for individuals with congenital abnormalities.“

Adult male loggerheads weigh about 250 pounds and grow to 3 feet in length, “but large specimens of more than 1,000 pounds have been found,” according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The species is listed as threatened, the S.C. Marine Turtle Conservation Program reports.

Nesting numbers fluctuate widely from year to year in South Carolina, but the trend is up across the Southeast, Weeks said.

“In 2020, staff and volunteers documented 5,562 nests on SC beaches, yielding an estimated 240,000 emerged hatchlings,” she said.

“Currently, we’re at 4906 nests for the 2021 season. In 2019, we documented 8795 nests, the highest count since we started keeping records in the 1970s.”

This story was originally published July 26, 2021 at 11:06 AM with the headline "Two-headed sea turtle hatches on South Carolina beach. Odds are against it."