14 DAY TRIAL // Another freak in the gallery of odd cats: a two-faced one! They may live nine lives, but with a face from SF movies. Renee Cook of Amarillo, Texas, got a real shock when her three-year-old Persian and Calico mix cat Amber delivered this two-faced kitten.
"I picked it up and said, 'Oh my goodness, two faces'. I thought it was dead at first because it was cold. But then it started to wiggle and it kept wiggling and wiggling. He has a strong heartbeat and was kind of feisty. So now I'm thinking that it's going to live," Cook, a special needs children's nurse, told Amarillo Globe-News.
The weird male kitten has two mouths, two noses and four eyes, but only two ears, and has to be infant-formula fed, as its two mouths impede it to nurse properly from its mother.
"It can't nurse, but it will take formula," she said.
Veterinarians say that these cases are extremely rare, and usually the kitten does not reach adulthood.
"You don't see many adult cats like that, so the chances of a long-term survival are pretty slim," said veterinarian David Hodges.
Still, two years ago, a two-headed cat was born in Arizona and the animal, baptized Lil'Bit, has survived to adulthood and lives a healthy life.
This type of abnormality could be caused by a developmental issue and it is called diprosopus. It emerges when twins start to form and don't completely separate. The twins are completely fused with one set of limbs, but part or all the face is duplicated. Such cases have been signaled along the time in snakes, turtles, pigs, cows, and other species.
This type of abnormal development could also be caused by a gene mutation, which seems not to impede the animal to live a normal life.