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Eight-Legged Cat
Take a look at this picture. Is it real or fake? It kind of looks like two cats held up one behind the other. But it's not. The picture is real. In 2001, I received an email detailing a conjoined kitten which was born in Østfold, Norway in April. Unlike the 1750 six-legged cat which was only doubled from the "waist" down, the Norwegian kitten was doubled from the neck down. It had eight paws, two tails and two chins and was part of a litter of six. The other 5 kittens were normal. The conjoined kitten died shortly after birth, which is not unusual for such grossly malformed offspring. The image indicates two tortoiseshell and white female kittens (incompletely separated twins) which were joined at the belly and which would have shared most of their internal organs. Had such a severely deformed kitten survived, such a gross deformity would have severely compromised its lifestyle and mobility.
Update: I really messed up on my first attempt at this post (I was writing it late at night), confusing the Norwegian cat with an American-born 8-legged cat called Octopussy. Part of the Octopussy story can be found here.
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Categories: Animals, Photos/Videos Posted by Alex on Wed Oct 13, 2004 |
Comments (16) |
| More from the Hoax Museum Archives: | |||
The photograph is not of Octopussy, it is a photo of a Norwegian conjoined kitten. Octopussy is a black kitten born in the USA. The kitten in the photo is clearly calico.
Posted by Sarah in UK on Wed Oct 13, 2004 at 03:27 AM
Do these kinds of things ever to happen to dogs and horses?
Posted by john in NH on Wed Oct 13, 2004 at 04:48 PM
I believe they do. At the Ripley's museum in Niagara Falls there were several animals with similar deformities, mostly mammals.
Posted by Ariel on Wed Oct 13, 2004 at 06:06 PM
As Alex said, births of such malformed animals are not too rare, but they almost always either are born dead or die very soon after birth.
In various museums I've seen stuffed or pickled two-headed calves, five-legged goats, four-winged chickens, and so on.
One "monstrosity" that is rather common, and probably not harmful to the animal, is extra toes (not whole extra legs) in cats (I think "polydactylism" is the medical term for this trait). I have seen several living examples of such cats, with seven or more toes on each paw (normal is five on each front paw and four on each hind paw). They look as if they're wearing catcher's mitts, but they don't seem to be impaired in any way. Sometimes the pads (the "palms" of the paws) are partly or entirely doubled as well. Some people hold that having such a cat as a pet brings good luck.
Polydactylism also occurs occasionally in humans, but it is usually surgically "corrected" early in life.
The Freakatorium in New York City (a place every fan of the Museum of Hoaxes should visit!) has a live two-headed turtle in an aquarium. Its name is Frick and Frack, and I saw it with my own eyes in June 2004. It appears normal in every way, except that it has two fully-formed, and apparently fully functional, heads. When I saw Frick and Frack, he? she? they? was/were doing all the usual turtle things, pausing now and then to look in different directions simultaneously with his? her? their? two heads.
Posted by Big Gary C in Dallas, Texas on Sat Oct 16, 2004 at 04:01 PM
In various museums I've seen stuffed or pickled two-headed calves, five-legged goats, four-winged chickens, and so on.
One "monstrosity" that is rather common, and probably not harmful to the animal, is extra toes (not whole extra legs) in cats (I think "polydactylism" is the medical term for this trait). I have seen several living examples of such cats, with seven or more toes on each paw (normal is five on each front paw and four on each hind paw). They look as if they're wearing catcher's mitts, but they don't seem to be impaired in any way. Sometimes the pads (the "palms" of the paws) are partly or entirely doubled as well. Some people hold that having such a cat as a pet brings good luck.
Polydactylism also occurs occasionally in humans, but it is usually surgically "corrected" early in life.
The Freakatorium in New York City (a place every fan of the Museum of Hoaxes should visit!) has a live two-headed turtle in an aquarium. Its name is Frick and Frack, and I saw it with my own eyes in June 2004. It appears normal in every way, except that it has two fully-formed, and apparently fully functional, heads. When I saw Frick and Frack, he? she? they? was/were doing all the usual turtle things, pausing now and then to look in different directions simultaneously with his? her? their? two heads.
Aw, I love kittens....makes me sad, this topic...(TRUELLY!!!) Nature can be so harsh!
Posted by Paul on Sat Oct 16, 2004 at 06:22 PM
My roommate adopted a kitten from a coworker who had two separate cats deliver kittens on the same day. The kittens from one cat were normal but the kittens from the other cat all had the extra toes (commonly called Hemingways). One of the kittens had 9-10 toes on one had (I forget exactly how many now) and we nicknamed her Stop Sign because her paw was so big. It was adorable though.
Also, I went to school with a guy that was born with 6 fingers on each hand. One had a bone but the other didn't. The extra fingers were amputated when he was tiny but you could see the scars on his hand and the hand that had the finger with the bone you could still see the knuckle. Kinda cool
Posted by Jellybelly in Dark side of the Moon on Sun Oct 17, 2004 at 07:42 PM
Also, I went to school with a guy that was born with 6 fingers on each hand. One had a bone but the other didn't. The extra fingers were amputated when he was tiny but you could see the scars on his hand and the hand that had the finger with the bone you could still see the knuckle. Kinda cool
That poor kitten!!! 
:sad:
Posted by Carmen on Thu Jan 06, 2005 at 12:07 AM
:sad:man that really stinks cause i saw this pic on funnyjunk.com and i thought it was fake until i realized that it could actually happen so i took it i my own hands and got online and looked it up and it showed m a result of this sight and bam here it is and i read the full story its quite unusual looking and can some of them stay alive or are they born dead like the red one u posted to a link with a lot more pictures because the read one looks just like this one above except its like dead and is it capable of survivin and was it supposed to transform into a seperate kitten but didnt fully capable of doing so and it just like died or sumthing well thats all yea im 15 bia bia stop snitchin and ooooow yea i found miss new booty ahaha
Posted by larry on Fri Apr 07, 2006 at 07:55 PM
thats my cat!
Posted by sdfklasdfl;sdl in dslksfdal on Wed Apr 26, 2006 at 04:29 PM
oh and by the way i feel as though i am apauled that you didnt put that thing down the river in a jug
Posted by buzzoom in munchkinland on Mon Jun 12, 2006 at 06:08 PM
I have a cat with a split nose. Her nostrils are not connected by nose tissue. I call her Aphrodite and she's very sweet.
Posted by Meerkat in Austrailia on Fri Jul 14, 2006 at 11:12 AM
There is also an 8 legged cat in Wheeling WV. You can find it on myspace under the name the amazing 8 legged Cat.I know the guy who has it he uses it to do fundraisers for birth defects and just as a sideshow thing.
Posted by jl on Mon Oct 08, 2007 at 05:17 PM
this is amazing... is this cat for sale ?? if so i would like to purchase this mystical creature. im willing to give 1,000,000 dollars. contact me at 740-285-0396
Posted by marissa perkins on Mon Jan 28, 2008 at 10:46 AM
Awww, that poor kitty, i love cats and that is kind of disturbing for me. I wonder if it's died and if it has how long it lived. How does it walk? Anyway, poor kitty!
Posted by Emily on Sun Mar 09, 2008 at 09:10 PM
thats so sad! i love animals so i cant bear this!!! 
Posted by sara on Mon Dec 14, 2009 at 05:13 PM
This poor cat i believe it is a real cat conjoined with another when it was born.
Posted by Sonja Bruckman in Denison Tx. on Fri Mar 19, 2010 at 05:42 PM
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