Lenny and Squiggy is the latest attraction at the Venice Beach Freakshow. Read more here.

10:30 AEST Wed Sep 16 2009

By ninemsn staff

Xiu Qiong Duan found the snake in her house.

An elderly Chinese woman who discovered a snake with a clawed hand protruding from its body was so scared she beat it to death, according to reports.

Xiu Qiong Duan, 68, told the SINA Beijing news agency she woke up in the middle of the night to find the snake clinging to the wall of her bedroom.

"I woke up and heard a strange scratching sound ... at first I thought it was thieves" she said.

"I turned on the light and saw this monster working its way along the wall using his claw."

Ms Duan, from Suining in southwest China, said she then grabbed a shoe and beat the snake to death.

She reportedly preserved its body in a bottle of alcohol which she gave to the Life Sciences Department at China's West Normal University in Nanchang.

Snake expert Long Shuai said the discovery of the creature, which is 40cm long and the thickness of a little finger, was "truly shocking".

"We won't know the cause until we've conducted an autopsy," she said.

TUCSON, AZ - A wild surgery took place Thursday when conjoined rattlesnakes underwent surgery to be separated in order to survive. The conjoined snakes are an anomaly rarely seen in the wild.

The snakes, which were connected just below the head, were found at a construction site and brought to the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. The museum enlisted local vet Dr. Jim Jarchow to attempt to separate the animals.

"It's my job to improve their quality of life and survive and function as they normally would," Dr. Jarchow says.

The Desert Museum said that it is extremely rare for snakes to be found like this in the wild.

"I've been working with reptiles for 20 years and this is the first time I've seen them in the flesh," says Stephan Poulin with the Desert Museum.

The surgery took about 45 minutes, and after three weeks of living together, they quickly became two separate snakes.

Originally it was thought the snakes were connected by soft tissue only, but during the surgery Dr. Jarchow found that the snakes were actually connected by bone.

"They shared part of the top of two vertebrae and we had to cut through the connection," he says.

Recovery from the surgery will take several months, after which the snakes will be put on display at the Desert Museum. The snakes were moving on their own just a few minutes after surgery and are expected to make a full recovery.

"They should live a healthy, complete separate life from each other," says Poulin.

And even though these twins will now live their own lives, they'll always share a special bond.