Eight-Legged Cat

imageTake 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. It's Octopussy, the 8-legged cat. It's a cat that was born in Norway in 2001. Information about it can be found over at Messybeast.com:
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.

Animals Photos

Posted on Tue Oct 12, 2004



Comments

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  on  Wed Oct 13, 2004  at  02:27 AM
Do these kinds of things ever to happen to dogs and horses?
Posted by john  on  Wed Oct 13, 2004  at  03:48 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  05:06 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  on  Sat Oct 16, 2004  at  03:01 PM
Aw, I love kittens....makes me sad, this topic...(TRUELLY!!!) Nature can be so harsh!
Posted by Paul  on  Sat Oct 16, 2004  at  05:22 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  on  Sun Oct 17, 2004  at  06:42 PM
That poor kitten!!! :down: :sad:
Posted by Carmen  on  Wed Jan 05, 2005  at  10:07 PM
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  06:55 PM
thats my cat!
Posted by sdfklasdfl;sdl  on  Wed Apr 26, 2006  at  03:29 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  on  Mon Jun 12, 2006  at  05:08 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  on  Fri Jul 14, 2006  at  10:12 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  04:17 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  08:46 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  08:10 PM
thats so sad! i love animals so i cant bear this!!! 🐛 :down:
Posted by sara  on  Mon Dec 14, 2009  at  03:13 PM
This poor cat i believe it is a real cat conjoined with another when it was born. 😊
Posted by Sonja Bruckman  on  Fri Mar 19, 2010  at  04:42 PM
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