Three-eyed snake discovered near small Australian town

Snakes are common in Australia, obviously, but three-eyed snakes? Not so much.

Snakes can be found almost anywhere in Australia. On the beach In your vehicle. But this three-eyed reptile discovered in the Northern Territory is clearly unique.

The three-eyed carpet python was discovered by rangers near the small town of Humpty Doo, outside Darwin. He appears to have three fully functioning eyes, with an abnormal excess eye sprouting from the top of his scaly forehead.

We occasionally see snakes in the wild with polycephaly, or two separate heads, but rangers don’t think that’s the case here.

A subsequent x-ray of the snake revealed that ‘Monty’ (as he was nicknamed by rangers) does not have two separate heads forged together, but rather a skull with an extra eye socket, giving the python a handy vertically oriented gaze.

“It was generally agreed that the eye probably developed very early during the embryonic stage of development,” explains Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife in a Facebook post.

“It is extremely unlikely that this is due to environmental factors and is almost certainly a natural occurrence, as malformed reptiles are relatively common.”

Unfortunately, while Monty’s all-seeing third eye provided him with numerous advantages during his life (such as spying on threats from above), it was also the snake’s undoing; The snake was discovered in March, but died last week while still young.

“It’s remarkable that he was able to survive so long in the wild with his deformity, and he was struggling to feed before he died last week,” ranger Ray Chatto told NT News.