SAN DIEGO — A snake with three functioning eyes was found in the town of Humpty Doo in Northern Territory, Australia last week.
The foot-long juvenile carpet python, dubbed Monty, with a malformed head was found by park rangers and handed over to wildlife officers but it was struggling to feed and unfortunately died.
Photographs of the three-eyed serpent were first posted by Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife on its Facebook page on Wednesday, which said an x-ray of the snake's head revealed it had one skull with an additional eye socket and was not two separate heads forged together as initially thought.
The wildlife authority said that it was generally agreed the eye most likely formed very early during the embryonic stage of development and was almost certainly a natural occurrence.