Happy Birthday to the Two-Headed Kingsnake of the East Bay Vivarium

Update, Sept. 8, 2025: Sadly, the East Bay Vivarium’s two-headed kingsnake, Zeke/Angel, died three days after this story was published, just one day before his first birthday.

If you’re one of the thousands of Americans living with ophidiophobia (a fear of snakes), encountering a serpent with two heads probably isn’t high on your bucket list. But for Bay Area reptile fans, the two-headed California kingsnake currently residing at the East Bay Vivarium in Berkeley has been a source of joy for a whole year now.

Hatched on Sept. 6, 2024, Angel/Zeke has spent his first 12 months hanging out, munching on frozen baby mice once a week, and generally living his best life — against all odds. Not only are two-headed snakes a rarity, only occurring about once every 100,000 snake births, they often die almost immediately. This one benefits from the fact that the two heads share a single set of organs.

“We’ve hatched and/or birthed partially two-headed snakes before but they haven’t survived,” explains John Emberton, co-owner of the vivarium. “We’ve hatched two-headed lizards. We had a two-headed Japanese cave gecko once. We’ve had some two-headed turtles, but none of them survived. None of them made it more than a few days. In some cases, they got out of the egg and that was it. They didn’t even live an hour. So that’s what makes this thing special. It’s pretty darn rare. I’ve been doing this for 36 years and this is the only one that has lived for me.”

Now that Angel/Zeke is hitting his one-year milestone, the Vivarium is hoping to re-home him in an institution that will make him even more visible to the public. Emberton’s preference would be the California Academy of Sciences — already home to local animal icons, Claude the albino alligator and Methuselah, the 100-year-old lungfish. Emberton has been in discussions with the Steinhart Aquarium about getting his legless legend situated there. According to Emberton, this lampropeltis getula californiae would be a good fit because it’s much more outgoing than most snakes.

“Snakes are generally secretive and shy, but this guy’s not,” Emberton explains. “He’s out all the time. He’s very curious about the world around him. Most snakes are really good at getting into or out of things. They can weasel through the smallest little cracks and get into tight little holes. This one of course can’t. He’s not as retiring as other snakes, which makes it a really good display.”

Angel/Zeke was named after the two Vivarium employees that were on hand the day that the snake hatched, though which name applies to which head is still being debated. The larger head is the only one that eats but Emberton assures us that the smaller head is alert, healthy and aware of the world around it.

“It has even picked fights with its brother, its other head,” Emberton says.” I’ve only seen that twice. And it’s usually getting irritated because we’re handling it. But I mean, everybody gets grumpy with their brothers!”

Angel/Zeke is on display at the East Bay Vivarium now. Emberton suggests paying him a visit before he’s relocated to a higher-profile location.

“It’s probably a good time to look at him soon,” Emberton says. “Come into our shop and it’s not going to cost you a nickel.”