Fri Jul 30 2010
by Laura Freeman
Reporter
Hudson -- A pair of Hudson Montessori student became school celebrities last week when they found a two-headed turtle during a game of kickball.
Pat Cassell, 12, thought he was picking up a piece of red plastic when he saw the overturned turtle in the grass March 18 around 11:45 a.m. during recess behind the school.
"Is this real?" Pat asked his friend, Ryan Peetz, 13, when he saw it was a baby turtle with two heads.
Ryan thought the turtle was dead until it pulled its feet into its shell.
Pat said they started to shout about their unusual find. The other kids stopped playing kickball and crowded around, wanting to see.
The students made a home for the turtle in a small plastic terrarium in Jeannete Chin's classroom.
"Everyone was excited," Chin said. "They showed it to all the classes, including the middle school."
Although Pat and Ryan are the main caretakers of the turtle, others have taken an active interest in it. He may be incorporated in biology lessons, said Chin.
Parents and visitors have made special trips to the school to see the two-headed reptile, and it was featured on the Hudson Hub-Times Web site.
Pat and Ryan named the turtle Ricky Bobby -- one name for each head, they said -- after a character in "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," but they're not sure if the turtle is male or female.
Pat and Ryan are learning how to care for the turtle and determined it was a baby red eared slider turtle because of its red underbelly and red and orange markings on its skin. The turtle has four brown eyes, and the boys say one head appears to do most of the eating.
"One head looks one way and the other head looks the other way," Pat said.
"One [head] is more interested in food," Ryan added.
Chin said the boys looked up information on how to care for the turtle and can keep it as long as it eats.
"We can keep it until it stops eating and then let it back into the wild," Pat said. "We'll see how long we can raise him."
"I wasn't sure it would live past its first day," Ryan said.
Laura Graber, a wildlife research technician with the Ohio Division of Wildlife, said she has never received a call about a two-headed turtle.
The red eared slider turtle is not native to Ohio but is sold by the thousands at pet stores and can breed in the wild, Graber said.
"It's a rarity, a freak of nature," Graber said about the two heads. "Something just didn't work out when it was going through the process of developing before hatching from an egg."
Graber said the turtle lays two to 30 eggs in dirt between May and July, and they hatch 60 to 90 days later. The red eared slider turtle lives in or near water and can live 35 years in captivity, she added.
Pat said they may ask the middle school students at Hudson Montessori to test the water in the pond near where the turtle was found for anything unusual in it -- besides a two-headed turtle.
E-mail: lfreeman@recordpub.com
Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3150
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