Three-eyed snake found along highway in Humpty Doo, Australia

HUMPTY DOO, Australia -- Park rangers in Australia made an unusual discovery along the side of the highway: a snake with a third, functioning eye on the top of its head.

Rangers found the 15-inch juvenile snake near Arnhem Highway in Humpty Doo, a town in Australia's Northern Territory about 45 minutes outside of Darwin.

According to Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife, rangers conducted an x-ray and determined that the snake only had one skull, so the extra eye was not the product of a second head that had fused into the snake's main head during development. Rather, the snake likely experienced some form of mutation early on in its development that caused it to develop the third eye.

"It is extremely unlikely that this is from environmental factors and is almost certainly a natural occurrence as malformed reptiles are relatively common," Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife explained.

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