A Kitten with a rare abnormal features of three eyes, two mouths and two nose was born in Eastern Cape, South Africa, on Dec 12. Named Bettie Bee, she has four paws, a tail and two ears like other kittens.
She is a two-faced cat or “Janus Cat”. In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions. It has two faces.
Its double face made it difficult for her to nurse. She could have started to die. The cat-owner brought it to a nearby cat rescuer who is known for taking in special-needs cats.
A protein called Sonic Hedgehog Homolog (SHH) signals genes to control for facial width, among other things.
However, if SHH acts abnormally, the face becomes too wide, and parts of it start to duplicate, and you can end up with varying degrees of craniofacial duplication, such as is likely the case with Bettie Bee.
The opposite of this condition, where the face is too narrow, is called cyclopia because it results in the animal having just one, large central eye, like a cyclops.
Craniofacial duplication can deform a brain or make it difficult to eat and breathe, so animals affected by this trait often die in the womb or shortly after birth.
Complete duplication is also highly associated with organ deformities. But Bettie Bee seemed to be doing just fine initially, until her sudden death at 16 days old.
