From extra limbs to abnormally large specimens, here are 10 shocking mutant animal discoveries:
Number 10 Winged Cats During a heat wave in China’s Sichuan Province,
several cat owners noticed that their pets started developing bumps on their backs.
They didn’t think much of it at first, but then the bumps began turning into wing-like
growths.
These strange growths weren’t just flaps of skin as they actually contained phone.
One owner argued that the wings on his cat, named Tom, were the result of stress because
females in heat were harassing him.
Nevertheless, Tom had nothing to worry about.
Genetic experts claimed that the wings didn’t affect the cats’ lives in any way and that
they were the possible result of poor grooming, a hereditary skin condition or a genetic mutation.
Number 9 Kenny Kenny was a white tiger rescued along with
his brother Willie, in 2006, by the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Reserve in Arkansas.
Willie had a normal orange coat but was cross-eyed.
Kenny, however, was mentally disabled and couldn’t close his mouth properly because
of a deformity in his face.
Their parents were siblings made to mate by their breeder in an attempt to get a white
tiger.
The breeder eventually gave up on Kenny and Willie because selling them proved too difficult.
White tigers are undoubtedly beautiful but natural births are very rare.
Closely related tigers are made to breed until the right mutation occurs.
They’re often born with various health problems and physical deformities and their life span
is usually quite short.
Kenny, for example, died of cancer in 2006.
Number 8 Two-headed Snake As their name implies, black rat snakes have
bodies that are completely black, with the exception of their chins, which are white.
One of the first strange things about We the black rat snake was that it was an albino,
meaning that its body was completely white.
The second and arguably much stranger aspect, was that We had two heads and both male and
female reproductive organs.
Back in 1999, We was bought by the World Aquarium in St. Louis for $15,000.
In the years that followed close to one million people visited it.
In the wild, two headed snakes don’t live for very long.
Not only do the two heads fight over food but they may even try to eat each other.
This was obvious in We’s behavior as well, as visitors would often see him try to move
in two different directions at the same time.
The World Aquarium unsuccessfully tried to breed We with another two-headed snake.
They then tried to auction it for $150,000 in 2006, unsuccessfully.
It was eventually adopted by Nutri Pharma, a biotech company that manufactures drugs
for multiple sclerosis and age I we.
We remained with the company until its breath at the age of eight.
Number 7 Faith Because of a brain mutation, Faith’s front
legs never fully developed when she was born.
She was a homeless dog that had been rejected by her mother as a pup.
When 17-year-old Reuben Stringfellow found her abandoned he decided to give Faith to
his mother.
Unfortunately, the dog’s front legs gradually became weaker and ultimately had to be amputated.
Yet, what could have been a very sad story, eventually turned into an inspirational one.
Faith learned to walk on her hind legs just like a human being.
She was also taught how to hop and run.
Faith made an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, met several celebrities and was considered
for a role in the fourth installment of the Harry Potter movies.
It doesn’t stop there.
Faith also visited military bases and hospitals to serve as an encouragement for injured soldiers
and veterans.
She was even made an honorary sergeant in the US army.
Number 6 Three-headed Frog Even though reports of mutant frogs have been
circulating for more than 200 years, finding one with three heads and six legs was considered
highly unlikely.
That was until students from the Green Umbrella Nursery in the UK discovered such a specimen
in 2004.
When they first laid eyes on the animal, they thought it was actually three separate frogs
standing very close to each other.
Upon closer examination they noticed that it was actually one frog.
Its eyes and legs appeared to function normally but it wasn’t clear if it could ingest food
through all its three mouths.
Froggy, as the animal was later dubbed, was captured and placed in a tank by school staff.
The next day, however the staff and students found that Froggy had escaped.
There are a number of explanations as to how Froggy came to be.
Some suggested genetic mutation while others claimed that parasites or pollution might
have had something to do with it.
A possible suspect was the decommissioned Hinkley nuclear power station, located about
12 miles away.
Number 5 Octogoat Croatian farmer Zoran Paparic had to call
a neighbor to his home to make sure he wasn’t going crazy.
It all happened after Paparic saw the kid that his goat Sarka had given birth to.
Not only did the newborn have both female and male reproductive organs but it also had
eight legs.
Sarka had also given birth to two other kids, but neither showed any deformity.
It had reportedly been her third time giving birth and, according to Paparic, she’d always
had triplets.
He called the eight-legged kid a ‘miracle of nature’.
Veterinarians told Paparic that the kid, dubbed Octogoat, had probably absorbed an underdeveloped
twin while still in the round and wasn’t expected to live for very long.
Number 4 Monkey-Faced Piglet From a litter of 15 piglets born on a farm
in Guizhou Province, China, one stood out with some very unusual features.
Its body featured trotters and overall resembled that of a normal piglet.
The animal’s face, however, was described as resembling that of a monkey.
Its eyes were of different sizes and protruded from its head.
It had two holes for a nose and an overbite that left its long tongue protruding from
its mouth.
The piglet’s owner had to the bottle feed it every day as the shape of the animal’s
mouth prevented it from suckling like the other piglets.
As soon as pictures of the strange looking piglet emerged online, peoples’ main curiosity
was what would it look like when it grew up.
Some of the comments regarding its appearance blamed pollution or modified foodstuffs.
Number 3 Belgian Blue You might have seen pictures on the Internet
of incredibly muscular cows that would stir the envy of most professional bodybuilders.
This is a breed of beef cattle known as the Belgian Blue.
They have a natural mutation in the myostatin gene, which is responsible for inhibiting
muscle growth.
The mutation stops the myostatin gene from working properly which causes lean muscle
to grow faster.
The result is an ultra-muscular, hyper sculpted physique.
This type of physical development has been dubbed ‘double-muscling’.
Instead of hypertrophy, which is enlarging individual fibers like most people do in the
gym, their condition causes hyperplasia.
What this basically means is that they have more muscle fibers.
Crossbreeding is how the Belgian Blue initially came to be and their condition was first documented
in 1808.
As time went by, their mutation was maintained through linebreeding until it became a fixed
feature of the Belgian Blue breed.
Number 2 Frank and Louie On September 8, 2011, Frank and Louie turned
12 years and entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest Janus cats in
the world.
Named after Janus, a Roman good depicted with two faces, these cats usually never live past
a few days.
Janus cats suffer from a very rare mutation called craniofacial duplication.
This mutation causes an animal to have two faces on a single skull.
Although extremely rare, it can even occur in humans.
Frank and Louie had the same brain, three eyes, two noses, two mouths and two ears.
Their middle eye, which was the biggest, didn’t function.
Louie’s face wasn’t connected to the esophagus and he didn’t have a lower jaw, so they
used Frank’s face to eat.
They were adopted by veterinary technician Marty Stevens after their previous owner had
brought them to the clinic to have them put down.
Number 1 Giant Feral Hog According to the Alabama Department of Conservation
and Natural Resources, licensed hunters are encouraged to help reduce the feral hog population.
These animals reproduce quickly and don’t really have any natural predators.
It’s been estimated that, each year in the US, feral hogs cause around $800 million worth
of agricultural damage.
People often have to protect their property from these beasts.
However, the beast that stumbled into Wade Seago’s front yard was in a league of its
own.
The gigantic animal tipped the scale at roughly 820 pounds and had 6-inch tusks that looked
like they could do some serious damage.
Seago’s dog, a small schnauzer named Cruiser, started to bark at the feral hog.
Fearing that the beast might harm Cruiser, Seago waited until he had a clear line of
sight and fired his .38 revolver at it.
After he killed the hog, Seago hung it from a tree by its hooves.
He took a picture that would quickly become viral on social media as people were astounded
by the sheer size of the animal.
Seago, the owner of a taxidermy shop, claimed that he would personally handle mounting the
beast for display.