Animals, Bizarre

Two-Headed Pelican?

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

The Daily Mail has published an amazing photograph (click to enlarge) of a two-headed pelican. You don’t see those every day. The Daily Mail even cites the Massachusetts Audubon Society that “animals with abnormalities like that usually do not live very long in the wild.”

What’s even more amazing is, not only does the pelican have two heads, it has four wings.

H/T: Jerry Coyne.

25 thoughts on “Two-Headed Pelican?”

  1. Malisha 1, September 23, 2012 at 9:32 am

    Don’t trust those Pellicans. They’re two-faced.
    ====================================

    What about the Navy Blue Angels.

  2. OS,

    You-ve convinced me. I was looking a long time at that wing wondering if it was two wings or two rows of feathers. Your separate photo shows no sign of extra rows on the inside of the wing.
    QED

    The shadow of the far bird on the shoulder of the near bird is still disturbing me.

  9. The little tuff-tuff?

    It has the potential energy in its current position to heat your house and light it for two years.
    A lot of rocket fuel was expended lifting it. Personal Allowance to astronauts?

  10. I’ve changed my mind—as usual..

    Look at the shadow on the shoulder of what would appear to be from a head. With the angle of lighting, it can’t be from the nearer head. So the shadow is
    from the one further away. But how close would that head have to be to cast such a shadow. Very near I fear.

    Result: Two-headed bird. They used to exhibit two-headed calves at all county fairs. Don’t know what happened to them. The fairs I mean.

    The calves? They are those expensive cutlets you eat.
    Or a genuine schnitzel.

  13. Things are never what they appear ! It almost got me, untill I used my ( one ) head . But a warning of what to expect or not.

  14. Staggeringly poor journalism, as usual, from the Daily Mail. They appear to have realised that they can increase their page impressions by insulting the reader’s intelligence.

  17. You can see the shoulder of the second bird just above the one in the foreground and the wing just beneath the one in front. Its a great shot and evidence of how you can’t always believe what you see

  18. OS shows us the telephoto compression phenomenon, which I was aware of, and doubted this was a case here as no fragment of a second body could be found. Thus I chose the photoshop alternative.
    After intuitively reading what the wings*** are expressing, then the nearest head is incorrectly positioned. Thus the most remote in the correct one.

    The leading edge of the neck also shows signs of “shopping”.

    ***The wings “say” that the bird is rising steeply, which would be indicated also by an extended neck. Conclusion given above.

    Boooooring explanation.

  19. Clever photoshopping? Blankfaced lie as to four-wingedness? Early Aprilfoolsday.? Coffee snorter?

    Mostly it seems like a election campaign promise. Guess which campaign.

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