Conjoined Kitten - off topic, but fascinating!

[pamnock]

I thought everyone might find this interesting, even though not rabbit specific . . .

Someone mentioned they had a conjoined kitten(s) preserved in a jar(so, of course, I wanted to see it). The kitten died shortly after birth. The kittens heads were fused together and it had3 eyes. Each had a separate mouth, but shared a single lower jaw, keeping the mouth pulled open. The fore quarter of the body was as one and appeared normal, however split off into 2 separate ear quarters, each with 2 rear feet, 2 rear tails, and very strangely,one was male and one was female! This is supposedly impossible as conjoined twins are identical, from one one egg and always the same sex. Every single article I could find on any conjoined mammal confirmed they were always the same sex, until I finally came across a case study with photos of a conjoined set of twins -- one male and one female! It cannot be explained how this would be possible (they rule out the theory of "polar body twinning"), but I did find it very interesting.

And daughter Stephaniedid end up coming home with a cute live kitty that she has named "Vera" So, we have yet another house pet . . .



Pam



Yes, I am posting at 2:30 am -- can't sleep :shock:

Pam

 

[dreamgal042]

that's really interesting. wait...why were the kitties in a jar??? my friend sent me the link to an entire site where you could find kitties stuffed into bottles. couldn't look at it without crying. the sad part was, the kitties were still alive, and there was a toddler playing with one of the bottles. (s)he didn't understand.grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr some people just stink. sorry if I'm misunderstanding.

 

[pamnock]

The "kittens in a jar" website is a hoax -- those kitties are not raised in jars. They would not live for long contained in a jar like that. Kittens were put into the small containers and photographed for the website as a hoax.

The conjoined/deformed kitten I saw died shortly after birth and was preserved in a jar of formaldehyde.

Pam

 

[dreamgal042]

well ya coulda told me that before =P poor kitties.

 

[Carolyn]

That's really wild about the conjoined kitten,Pam. I missed his post, but do find it most interesting how one was male and one was female. I'm surprised they even made it through birth with the amount of issues they had going on.Thanks for mentioning this.One of my friends thatis a wildlife biologistwill definitelyfind this interesting.

A new pet to love:Vera! Hope she's a good girl.



-Carolyn

 

[pamnock]

Vera is a doll and spoiled rotten.She's Stephanie's girl and loves to keep her "mommy" up all night and destroy her room.

I came across more info on how the conjoined twins could have been different sexes. Apparently, they would have both started out as XY males, with one of the pair's Y chromosome being damaged or destroyed leaving a single X chromosome female (in humans this is called "Turner's syndrome"). It is extremely rare for identical twins to be of the opposite sex, but there are a few documented cases of the opposite sex identical/conjoined twins.



Pam

 

[dreamgal042]

we learned about turners syndrome in science class. *thinking thinking* nope, dont remember...

 

[pamnock]

[font="Verdana,"]From the TS society homepage [/font]

[font="Verdana,"]http://www.turner-syndrome-us.org/about/[/font]

[font="Verdana,"]Turner syndrome (TS) is a chromosomal condition that describes girls and women with common features that are caused by complete or partial absence of the second sex chromosome. TS occurs when one of the two X chromosomes normally found in females is missing or contains certain structural defects. The syndrome is named after Dr.Henry Turner, who was among the first to describe its features in the1930s. TS occurs in approximately 1 in 2,000 live female births.[/font]