The Dragon Stone

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Double-Headed Dragon
The double-headed serpent has a head at each end of its body. The most likely explanation for this is automimicry... that is where parts of the body resemble other body parts. Having a false head on the end of the tail will confuse predators. The false head may be attacked, leaving the real head safe. The predator will also not know which direction the dragon is going to run in. This is known to have evolved in several snake and lizard species. Therefore a dragon with a head at each end should be classified based on its other features.

Many Headed Dragons - Hydra
The many headed dragon has several heads at the head end. Old sources do not generally have a whole race of hydra, making it likely that these are odd individuals of a normally one-headed species.

In the wild, the most common form of two-headed animals is a process similar to siamese twins in humans; two embryos end up merging together. This can also lead to things like two tails, as it varies where the merge takes place.

Two-headed snakes and other reptiles are well documented in captivity. If both heads are fully functional, there will be problems. The heads may disagree on which way to go, which one of them is going to swallow food and even try to eat each other. This obviously makes survival in the wild unlikely as tracking down food is much more time consuming due to the heads disagreeing. They are also prone to being indecisive when faced with predators, which can easily be fatal.

Assuming that a two-headed animal survives to adulthood, the outlook is not completely grim. Captive two-headed animals can have long lives and reproduce successfully. One of the human reactions to dragons in the past was to leave out food offerings. This might help explain how a multi-headed dragon could survive to adulthood.

Animals with huge numbers of heads are not known, such as the seven and nine headed hydra. This is more likely to be an exaggeration.