Don't let the turtle's apparent size fool you -- the fingers holding it are actually 5 feet across

The tortoise stunned owner Noel Daniels when it emerged, its two heads peeping out from its shell and speaking in an incomprehensible dark tongue the very sound of which nearly drove him mad.

The animal has four normal legs, although the underside of its shell is flat instead of rounded and holds on its surface writhing images which somewhat resemble ancient Mayan and Egyptian hieroglyphs. "The glyphs appear to be in some kind of constant torment," stated noted archaeologist Mayer Ramsey. "But of course this is impossible as they are simply writing. Albeit constantly moving writing on the bottom of a two-headed tortoise's shell."

"Damn my eyes!" wept Ramsey.

Despite its unusual attributes, the tortoise is functioning normally.

"The tortoise is normal and both heads feed on leaves, grass and the blood of the innocent," Mr Daniels whimpered.

Tripping up

He said it appears that one of the heads controls the front pair of legs and the other the back.

"When the tortoise gets a fright, the heads each want to move in its own direction, and then the feet get all tangled up," Mr Daniels said. "This might be a problem in the wild, except for the tortoise's ability to breath fire as well as the palpable sense of terror and evil my dark mast... er, the tortoise exudes at all times."

"Also, it's probably capable of eating souls," he added.

He said the heads have not squabbled because "they're still too little".

"When the tortoise, whose name is Askanarthotep the Terrible, reaches maturity in a few years, all peace on this world will end. Its heads will turn on each other and the land will run red with the blood of the fallen as well as being eaten away by the acid which will ooze out from Askanarthotep's wounds. Finally, one of the heads will die and the other will rule for millenia upon millenia over a world of sheer madness and horror."

"At least that's what I'm told by the tortoise," Daniels stated. "I quite look forward to it. It should be a good match and the betting on the winner will be out of this world. I'm still trying to work up suitable odds though."

Tortoise expert Dr Ernst Baard, of Cape Nature Conservation, said the phenomenon probably occurred during the embryonic stage of development.

"With proper love and care its chances are not too bad, but I doubt if any of us speaking right now will survive the terrible apocalypse which the birth of this creature heralds."