Missouri Department of Conservation naturalist Lauren Baker has a unique office mate — with a distinctive lunchtime habit.
“We have to place a Dixie cup over one head, feed one head and then alternate,” Baker said. “If we were to just feed one head — let's say we're feeding Tiger and Lily’s not eating — the body will do fine. They'll live, but Lily is going to be a little bit more sassy with us.”
“There's a reason for this snakey cup of shame,” she added.
Tiger-Lily the two-headed snake came into the state agency’s care in 2017 after a family of hikers found her as a hatchling in southwest Missouri. The nearly 7-year-old snake’s permanent home is the Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery in Branson. Tiger-Lily is currently on an educational tour across the state, which is what brought her into Baker’s care at the Powder Valley Nature Center in Kirkwood.
Baker and St. Louis Zoo veterinarians are caring for Tiger-Lily in the wake of a surgery to remove abnormal ovaries that increased the snake’s risk for infection. Baker said that the recovery is going well and that Tiger-Lily will soon be able to resume her statewide tour.
“She's very much getting back to her normal self,” she said.
After years of living as conjoined twins, both Tiger and Lily have gotten used to sharing control of their body, though occasionally, they have sisterly scuffles.
“If someone really needs a drink of water and someone else is interested in doing something else, the body will follow to the water, and one [gets] dragged to the water dish because the [other] one really needs to drink,” Baker said. “Sometimes they'll form a little ‘T’ and get as far away from each other as possible when they want a break.”
Two-headed snakes don’t typically live longer than a few weeks in the wild. As hatchlings, it’s hard for them to understand that their two different brains are connected to one body, so they struggle to find shelter and food and become easy prey for predators including owls and foxes. In captivity, they can live for decades.
The Missouri Department of Conservation’s care of Tiger-Lily has allowed the snake to serve as an ambassador for western rat snakes. The nonvenomous reptile that’s native to Missouri is quite useful in controlling rodent populations and subsequently limiting the spread of disease.
Baker said Tiger-Lily is also an inspiration to visitors.
“She shares this message of perseverance and hope,” Baker said. “She's representative of an individual who has made it. She's outlived what we originally thought she would as a two-headed snake. It's crazy that she got found in the first place. And we're happy to keep supporting her and giving her whatever she needs to survive as long as she's with the Department of Conservation.”
Once Tiger-Lily is fully recovered from surgery, the snake will travel to the Anita B. Gorman Conservation Discovery Center in Kansas City. And once construction is finished at Shepherd of the Hills Conservation Center, Tiger-Lily will return to her permanent home in Branson.
For more on what it means to care for a snake with one body and two independent brains, listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcast, Spotify or click the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Roshae Hemmings is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
