An Ontario family was shocked when they saw one of their cat’s eight new kittens was born with two faces.
London, Ont. resident Jodi Waite and her family had been waiting on their cat Nala to give birth for the past few weeks and as they helped deliver the kittens on Sunday, they were completely caught off guard when they came face-to-face with the cat’s seventh offspring.
“She was lucky number seven,” Waite told CTVNews.ca over the phone. “My daughter saw her and said, ‘Mom, this one has two heads’ ... and I thought she assumed it was twins.”
But the family quickly realized “she had two faces not two heads.”
The family named the kitten “Miracle.” She was accepted by her mother and the family even started feeding her with a syringe. But despite their best efforts, Miracle only lived for three days.
“She was beautiful,” Waite said.
Waite said she’d never seen or heard of a kitten with two faces before. She was able to purr and meow at the same time through both of her mouths.
“One mouth would meow and the next mouth would meow at the same time,” she said. “It was pretty wild.”
Waite posted photos and videos about Miracle on Facebook on Tuesday.
‘It is very rare’
Waite began looking online and found out Miracle had a rare genetic mutation. Cats with that condition are called Janus cats -- named after the Roman god Janus, who is typically portrayed as having two faces.
While some Janus cats can live as long as 15 years, most of them do not live very long due to the health conditions associated with the deformity.
Dr. Matthew Kornya, a veterinarian at The Cat Clinic in Hamilton, Ont., said no one at his practice has ever seen a kitten like Miracle. He added there are only about six reported cases of the birth defect, although there may be more unreported cases.
“It is very rare,” he said. “Some of (these cats) can have a good quality of life, (but) most of them don’t end up making it to adulthood because of other associated issues.”
Kornya said kittens with physical defects tend to have other defects in their body, including in the brain, heart and liver. He added that kittens with two faces can have trouble with some of the necessities of life.
“A lot of these cats don’t make it past the first days of life because their ability to breathe and eat and things don’t necessarily line up if the esophagus and trachea are not formed properly,” he said.
