Two-faced cat is real, explains Dr Chris Brown
Celebrity vet Dr Chris Brown has solved half the mystery of how Venus, the two-faced cat, ended up with her unusual markings.
The three-year-old tortoiseshell, who was found as a stray on a North Carolina dairy farm in 2009, now has her own Facebook page and YouTube video and has become a viral sensation for her unique appearance.
On one half of Venus' face she has typical orange tabby stripes but with an uncommon blue eye, while her other side is solid black with a green eye.
"After she was originally passed off as a hoax, it turns out Venus the 2 faced cat is absolutely real," the Bondi Vet wrote on his Facebook page yesterday.
"But how she ended up with her unique markings might be as interesting as her appearance."
Venus was initially thought to be a chimera - the word used when two fertilised embryos fused inside the mother to create a "true 50/50 cat" with two sets of DNA, Dr Brown said.
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"But testing has shown that Venus isn’t this at all. Instead, her face is in fact pure luck.
"When her genes unleashed her colour scheme, by pure chance they landed on a perfect split of black pigment on one side of her face and orange on the other."
That's not where the mystery to the feline's interesting features ends, her single blue eye has also baffled experts.
"You see, aside from Siamese, cats normally only possess green or yellow eyes," the celebrity vet said.
"So to possess one baby blue is considered incredibly rare and it’s cause is a complete mystery."
His post sparked other animal lovers to share pictures of their own hybrid-faced animals, including Perth dog Panda, whose face is half white with a brown eye, and half brown with a blue eye.
"This is our beautiful 2 face Jemimah, although Venus is absolutely stunning," shared a Townsville woman whose kitty is also two-faced.
In other cat news, a one-eyed cat named Manny saved his owners from a home invasion at the Adelaide suburb of Brompton yesterday by alerting them to an intruder.
