Nature

A 7-Legged Hermaphrodite Lamb!

Born in New Zealand

By Stefan Anitei, Science Editor

2nd of August 2007, 18:06 GMT

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One more leg, and this would have been an octopus in disguise. A six-day-old lamb born at a veterinary clinic on New Zealand's South Island came to this world on its seven legs! "Two of the extra legs hang useless behind the lamb's forelegs. The animal has three hind legs, one of them with two hoofs. It walks using

its two forelegs and three hind legs," the Ashburton Guardian newspaper said.

The seven-legged lamb was born at the farm of Dave and Di Callaghan and has a normal twin sibling. "I didn't think there was anything wrong until I went back later in the day and saw it struggling to get up. I have never seen anything like that," recalled Dave Challaghan the day of Friday.

"It's quite a happy bright wee lamb, he's just slowly going downhill really. I believe an error during embryo formation had resulted in the lamb being born polydactyl - with many legs - a condition that occurs once in several million sheep. The lamb is also hermaphrodite and missing a portion of its bowel so is unable to pass feces and will have to be destroyed. To keep it alive is probably inhumane really," veterinarian Steve Williams at the Canterbury Vets clinic in the rural town of Methven told the Ashburton Guardian. (we feel that we must correct the veterinarian: "polydactylia" means more digits, the correct term is "polymelia" for extra-limbs)

Polymelia is rare among both humans and animals. It is more common in frogs and toads, but researches link it to impairments during the metamorphosis due to contaminants found in the environment or to parasitic worms.

Last month, a four-legged baby girl was born is South Africa and a similar case of polymelia associated with hermaphrodism was encountered in Wisconsin, US: a 7-legged intersex deer. But the deer had a functional organism, and it managed to reach adulthood.

TAGS:

lamb | leg | fetus

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