1/10/2006: Cyclops kitten born
 

http://cellar.org/2006/cyclopskitten.jpg

This AP news wire image was suggested by three different IotD readers, thanks! (Don't assume I've already seen something or that it's already been submitted... you never know.)

Can't possibly be true, I thought when I saw it -- it looks entirely fake. But it's a wire service image, and so it's has gone through *some* degree of real journalistic review. It became Yahoo's most popular image within hours.

They say this kitten was born this way, with one centered eye and no nose. They say they named it "Cy". They say it lived a day and then died. They say it was one of a litter of two and that the other kitten was normal and lived. They say the picture was "provided by the owner".

Snopes has yet to weigh in.

I don't know, and so this is presented with the thought that somebody has put together a pretty strong hoax, but... what do you think?

Let's hope the story doesn't end up like that of Polyphemus who was the son of Poseidon and the nymph Thoosa. He was the one-eyed giant Cyclops famous from the Odyssey, who imprisoned Odysseus and his men in a cave. Since Polyphemus was eating Odysseus' men, Odysseus was under some pressure to figure a way out, which he did. Odysseus tricked Polyphemus, poked out his eye, and got his remaining men out of the cave and into safety.

:eek:

Here's what he ended up like.

It sure looks fake to me, but I saw it in two different newspapers, so it must be true.

Its not likely to because its a cat and its dead already, but well done for remembering your Greek history! :D

Aren't all kittens born with blue eyes?

Normally. But then, they're normally born with two eyes, as well. I'm still waiting on snopes' take.

A mixup at the sperm bank with Homer Simpsons 'genetic material'?



and closed, too?

Snopes says it's the real deal .

Blimey - I thought it was too soon to look on snopes to be honest. I'm finding it less creepy and more sad now that I know it's real....

It *was* too early to check Snopes - they posted their item between 9 and 11 am Eastern!

I didn't know this could actually happen, but it does give some context to the Greek legends, doesn't it? Weird-ass mysterious creature with one eye is born somewhere, tales of it filter around, pretty soon it's worked into the mystical stories as well.

Highjack. Are all white cats with blue eyes deaf? I know someone who had 2 and both
were deaf.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...eyed+cats+deaf

busterb-yes.

I feel so sorry for that thing. Kind of reminds me of Leela...poor cyclops orphan girl.

Actually, busterb's link contained the answer...

I've also heard that the myth could have been started by elephant skulls, which have a forehead socket where the trunk attaches.

It is *extremely* rare for deformities in mammals to be this perfectly symmetrical. I wouldn't be so amazed by a cyclopic cat that had one eye kind of slightly off to one side, sloped a bit or otherwise misshapen, but this one is too *perfect*.

I thought cats were born with their eyes closed?

The snopes article addresses that.

But the part of my brain that assesses "normal" and "okay" is insisting that the picture looks 'Shopped.

Oh please, let it turn out to be 'Shopped, so that I can sleep.

What is really disturbing is that it occurs in 'mammals'. I have never heard of this in humans. Of course, I really don't want to.

It probably depends on how early the mutation kicks in. If it happens before the sides differentiate, left and right both receive the same incorrect instructions.

Too bad! See near the end of this article:

The eye looks way to big. kittens eyes are nowhere near that size. They are tiny, blue, relfective, closed and even if thats two eyes mutated together it couldn't be that big!!

surely he should have frozen the kitten corpse for proof and study.

I think it's more that the head is too small--I think the poor thing's just missing most of his skull and body, which happens to include one eye. It looks like he might be missing the other two legs as well.

I've seen a real cyclopic human baby, pickled in a jar. It was similar enough to this kitten picture to convince me that the kitten picture is real.

Considering how complicated the process is, between the sperm/egg and the finished product, it's a miracle any of them turn out "right". :3_eyes:

Please define "right"

True. creation is amazing and complicated.. its ineviatable that it should stuff up sometimes. I just read that snopes thing said that the big eye thing is a symptom of the cyclops deformity(or whatever it is).

<i>It is *extremely* rare for deformities in mammals to be this perfectly symmetrical.</i>

And ....

<I>creation is amazing and complicated.. its ineviatable that it should stuff up sometimes. </i>

Actually I think the word you wanted to use (i.e. the word I would have use if I were you) was "evolution". As in "evolution is amazing and complicated". I realize that our difference in expression may be due to differences in political thought.

Howere, if we can agree to disagree about the proper word use in this instance (i.e creation/evolution), then I am in complete agreement with your statement.

[o.k. but seriously,have you read <a href="http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf">this opinion?</a> [warning! pdf]. It is AMAZING LAW, imho.]

I wonder if Ripley's wound up with the corpse.

I'm no expert on birth defects, but my understanding is that there are genetic birth defects (which you could call evolution) and birth defects caused by other factors like exposure to certain toxins during pregnancy. One of the links in the Snopes article says that this particular condition in farm animals is cause by the mother eating a certain plant during pregnancy. Such a birth defect wouldn't change the DNA of the fetus, it would just interrupt its development. Without a DNA change, the defect wouldn't be passed along to the offspring of the fetus (assuming the fetus lived and could reproduce.) It's not genetic, so it's not evolution.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond....

Im no expert either, but it seems to me that it is missing indeed like a strip of skull in the middle of the head! Thats propably why the eye is so big and there is no nose! Maybe even a part of the brain ....There are surely humans born like this, look at the years that came after the Tsjernobil disaster...we didnt get to see all those "things" that wer born...

There is a documentary called "Chernobyl Heart" that shows a lot of the malformed children born after the meltdown.

I saw it on HBO. I have a very high tolerance for stuff, but this was difficult to watch.


edit to add: HBO's description is much more comprehensive

Well, there is such thing as a genetic succeptibility to outside factors. Allergies, for example.

My point is more along the lines of:

If you cut a dog's tail off, and then breed it, it will not produce puppies with short tails.

If a dog wears plutonium underwear, it may get a mutation of its sperm's DNA, and may have puppies with short tails.

In this case, according to the Snopes linked article, after many weeks of gestation, the fetus "has its tail cut off" when the mother is exposed to toxins which interrupt the development of the fetus. The DNA isn't altered, so the changes aren't a mutation that can be passed along to the next generation, the way evolution works.

Huge mistake: I did an image search for "cyclopia". The nightmares are going to last for weeks.

No, the sperm/egg combining to make a new critter is creation. The changes to that type of critter over generations is evolution.
Unfortunately those two words have become so politically charged they are both being misused way too often. :)

(Bruce)

I tend to avoid both terms. Both interesting but way too broadly opinionated.

True. I only use (used) the word creation as just that.. something being created. No political or spiritual meaning behind it.

Evolution i dont see coming into this, i doubt that any day soon we will evolve into cyclopic races of humans, goats and felines. But a sixth digit on our hands that acts as our car key perhaps.. longer thumbs for text messaging... Molar teeth strong enough to open that stuck on nail polish bottle lid.... a can opener bone developed into our wrists for easy baked bean access on the road.. now THATS what I'm talkin bout!!

And a finger long enough to find the G-spot. :blush:

As a quick note to defend my original point. The definition of "cyclopia" that Snopes links to includes this bit.further research reveals this tidbit.[<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/group/hpe/about/">source</a>]So I think it's safe to say there there is a non-zero chance that what we've seen here today is one of the many, many, many failures along the road to more robust organisms.

As to conception being creation, well, we can parse words all day long...but let's not.

And I realize that the original writer of the word did not mean to use it in a religious manner, but I had just finished reading that opinion when this pic popped up in my RSS feed, so the connotation was very top of mind in my own personal universe.

The fact that this seems to be a mammalian disorder would seem, IMHO, to give more weight to a genetic element, as all us warm bloods share common traits (i.e. DNA), and I don't know many pill-popping alcoholic cats.

peace,
-W

so if evolution is going to come in to the equation, wouldn't that mean that it would, by definition, have to start happening more often? because THAT is a scary thought.

Only if it conferred some advantage. Which doesn't seem likely.

Anyone think it may be a by-product of evolution? throw a stone in a pond and nothing in it is left undisturbed in some way. The same rules apply in the genome of any animal. Whatever gene is next to the one that gets broken/switched/lost that causes this may be related to the one that's getting passed down through mammals that survive. Hell, there are diseases caused by a piece of DNA breaking off of one allele and getting attached to another. It all happens in patterns.

In time, bloodlines will either stomp this out, or cycloptic kitties will be saved, nurtured, and stabilised by intrusive humans, and become the next American celebrity pet fad.

That's exactly it, though it could also involve an evironmental factor interacting with the genetics. For example, as mentioned previously, the mother eating a plant that contained a certain toxin.

The ways evolution could be involved in that case are, for example:

1) Animals who dislike the taste of the plant reproduce more successfully, eventually most of the population avoids it.

2) Animals which are less succeptible to the toxin reproduce more successfully, eventually most of the population can eat the plant without problems

Welcome to the Cellar, flesh golem.

If you cut off the tails of 100 generations of 100 lines of the same breed of dog, wouldn't they eventually start evolving shorter tails? I thought that was one of the basic tenets of evolutionary science -- that the environment can make us change over time. Like back when we were apes, we started standing upright to see over the tall grass, and it stuck.

I'm really not joking.

No, the tail size is written in the DNA. But if you neutered the dogs with long tails, and only bred the short-tailed ones, after a few generations, they would all have short tails. If you tried to breed them for shorter and shorter tails, eventually they would have no tail.

All dogs are the same species -- even the chihuahua and the great dane. They've simply been bred for specific purposes for a few hundred years. But if the dane has sex with the huahua, they will have a litter of dogs.

yeaaaaah, but then we'd all have to look at their assholes all the time, and what fun would that be? I mean really.

Don't you have cats at the Lumberjinx homestead?

* * *

As long as the dane is the female. Otherwise, there may be some rupturing issues.

No matter how many generations of women get their ears pierced, they won't be born with the holes. For evolution to happen, the change has to be in the DNA, and DNA isn't affected by injuries (radiation excepted, not that radiation effects are predictable). Evolution happens if a dog happens to have a short tail, and that somehow lets it have more babies. The next generation of dogs would then have a slightly larger percentage of short-tail dogs in its population, who would have a few more babies than average, further increasing the percentage of short-tail dogs in the next generation population. Eventually, they are the vast majority, and the species has evolved.

Here's a thought experiment relating to your example - Let's assume a predator that loves dog tail. If it sees a pack of dogs, it tries to bite off a tail. If it succeeds, that dog has a chance of getting an infection and dieing. Therefore, dogs with long tails attract more attacks, and have a correspondingly high death rate. Short tails are hard to get a hold on, so they fare better, and a mutant dog with no tail will escape unscathed.

But in a clinical trial, if you snip off the tails of some dogs, and then make sure each one survives the procedure and has the same number of babies, those babies will have roughly the same range of tail sizes as the parent generation, no matter how many generations you continue the experiment for.

Like this?

Yeah, but a great dane is considerably more than twice the size of a chihuahua, and dogs have multiple births as a general rule...

Via Boingboing. We'll miss you, tiny freakish kitten!

...And someday, thousands of years from now, anthropologists will assume that as a society we worshipped a mythical cyclops cat, whose all-seeing eye governed our daily lives.

you mean we don't?

D'OH!

Of course we do!

Only on IotD, Greek and Bio-lessons over a cat
 

And who modded IotD down on the educational scores. I've learned more useless greek info (unless there are hot greek girls reading this) and bio / genetics in the last few moments than I picked up in school.

Maybe you could offer the BS in IotD as a degree program.

Well, lt that be a lesson to you. :smashfrea

I can clearly see that it's fake. Beside, kittens that young don't even have their eyes open, simple fact. The originator of the hoax should be turned into a cyclops.