The newborn kitten shocked not only the owners, but also the scientists. According to them, cases of the birth of animals with such a pathology are known to science, but they happen, fortunately, quite rarely.
Scientists' opinion
Niels Pedersen, a professor at a veterinary research center in California, explained to the press why such mutations occur.
The phenomenon, when a creature with two faces or muzzles is born into the world, scientists call diprosopus. The system crashes due to an error in the gene. It bears the unusual name "sonic hedgehog", which appeared thanks to the character of one popular computer game at the time. The scientist who studied this gene and discovered the mechanisms of its work, in his free time devoted a lot of time to that very game and decided to reflect this affection by choosing a name for his discovery.
Modern science is at the very beginning of the path to studying mutations in the hedgehog gene. It is known that the amount of protein is produced in excess, which leads to the formation of excess body parts. However, other organs are not developing enough. For example, most organisms with diprosopa have poorly developed brains. Almost always, head mutation is accompanied by other abnormalities in the formation of organs and skeletons.
By the way, surprisingly, it is the sonic hedgehog that is responsible for the fact that snakes lost their limbs in the process of evolution: the protein simply stopped being produced over time.
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Similar cases
The mutation is most common in pigs and chickens. Although the word "more often" does not quite capture the essence. The disease is indeed rare. In addition, an organism that has such a failure in the genetic program rarely survives the prenatal period and lives up to its own birth. Most often, the embryo dies even in utero.
Man is also subject to mutation. But the disease, fortunately, is considered very rare. So much so that scientists find it difficult even to provide statistics: according to some data, it occurs in one out of 180 thousand newborns, according to others - not more often than once in 15 million. Only about 3.5 dozen cases are described. Most often, pregnancy is terminated according to indications, or a miscarriage occurs spontaneously. The vast majority of babies born died immediately or did not live long. For example, in 2008, a boy named Lali with two faces was born to the Sigh family in Delhi. In 2014, the Siamese twins Nadezhda and Vera were born in Australia, who had one head, but two brains and two faces. In both cases, the children lived for no more than a month.
By the way, the same fate awaited a Chinese kitten with two muzzles - it did not live even two weeks.
Two-faced record holder
But some have managed to outsmart nature and science. Several years ago, images of a creature named Fred and Louis blew up the internet, quickly going viral. A large cat with two muzzles, it seemed, was feeling quite well, his owners were not worried about his condition. In any case, he did not share the fate of most of his fellow misfortunes, and quite happily lived up to his fifteenth birthday. Fred and Louis are the most prominent long-liver with this mutation, recognized by the Guinness Book of Records.
Natasha Ryseva