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September 8, 2002
NAPLES -- What started as a routine day for Collier County sea turtle monitor Mary Toro turned out to be one of her most memorable -- after she found a baby turtle with two heads.
"I was shocked. I couldn't believe it," Toro said after finding the creature Thursday near Naples Cay.
Toro's boss, 20-year sea turtle monitoring veteran Maura Kraus, said she comes across two-headed turtle embryos every couple of years but had never seen one survive.
Toro found the two-headed loggerhead as she dug up a nest that had hatched three days earlier. Monitors dig up old nests to count the number of hatched and unhatched eggs and rescue stragglers.
Anne Meylan, a researcher with the Florida Marine Research Institute in St. Petersburg, said the creature likely is a natural occurrence.
After consulting with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Kraus released the turtle into the Gulf of Mexico.
"We didn't want it to become a freak in a freak show," she said.