About the Museum of Hoaxes
The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about whatever dubious-sounding claims come across our path on a day-by-day basis. In our archives we have hundreds of articles about the most fascinating and notorious deceptions throughout history, from the middle ages to the present.
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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.