Dear God, what IS that thing?

[savethewave]

Little Kitty Cyclops...


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060109/480/nyet27501091906

Proof that purebred pets are genetic disasters.

Comments

[savethewave]

I'll bet that not a single photo you have of a baby with only one eye, either...they only live for a few days at maximum.

No pics, but here's some scholarly evidence:

http://33.1911encyclopedia.org/M/MO/MONSTER.htm

Scroll about halfway down. This cat was a textbook example of this birth defect.

Cyclops, Siren, &c.The same feebleness of the formative energy which gives rise to some at least of the cases of defective closure in the middle line, and to the cases of ambiguous sex, leads also to imperfect separation of symmetrical parts. The most remarkable case of the kind is the cyclops monster. At a poii%t corresponding to the root of the nose there is found a single orbital cavity, sometimes of small size and with no eyeball in it, at other times of the usual size of the orbit and containing an eyeball more or less complete. In still other cases, which indicate the nature of the anomaly, the orbital cavity extends for some distance on each side of the middle line, and contains two eyeballs lying close together. The usual nose is wanting but above the single orbital cavity there is often a nasal process on the forehead, with which nasal bones may be articulated, and cartilages joined to the latter; these form the framework of a short fleshy protuberance like a small proboscis. The lower jaw is sometimes wanting in cyclopeans; the cheek-bones are apt to be small, and the mouth a small round hole, or altogether absent; the rest of the body may be well developed. The key to the cyclopean condition is found in the state of the brain. The olfactory nerves or lobes are frequently absent; the brain is very imperfectly divided into hemispheres, and appears as a ii&mewhat pear-shaped sac with thick walls, the longitudinal partition of dura mater (falx cerebri) being wanting, the surface almost unconvoluted, the corpus callosum deficient, the basal ganglia rudimentary or fused. The optic chiasma and nerves are usually replaced by a single mesial nerve, but sometimes the chiasma and pair of nerves are present. The origin of this monstrosity dates back to an early period of development, to the time when the future hemispheres were being formed as protrusions from the anterior cerebral vesicle or fore-brain; it may be conceived that, instead of two distinct buds from that vesicle, there was only ,a single outgrowth with imperfect traces of cleavage. That initial defect would carry with it naturally the undivided state of the cerebrum, and with the latter there would be the absence of olfactory lobes and of a nose, and a single eyeball placed where the nose should have been. A cyclops has been known to live for several days. The monstrosity is not uncommon among the domestic animals, and is especially frequent in the pig.

[anrakushi]

Ahha. Very cool