Animal Mutations Animal mutations seem to popup every once in a while, and some of them look really weird. They used to be things of side shows, like the two headed cow or animals with extra legs. Even sadder was the fact humans can get mutated in some way at birth. I remember the sad case of two sisters who were sharing one body who made the news a couple of years ago. Their names are Abigail Lorraine and Brittany Lee Hensel. By a mean twist of fate, they were mutated into that one body but made the very best of their lives. Instead of hiding, they went to school, graduated college and became teachers. They even participated in sports. Separation would have meant at least death for one or both of them. They even had a reality show. This article is not about human mutations however, I just wanted to illustrate humans are not safe from this sort of thing. There was a strong suspicion that what was believed to be a mutant animal which washed up on a Long Island, New York beach was a mutant animal which came from Plum Island, a place long thought to be the center of animal experiments and near Long Island. There are those who think that island, Plum Island that is, is polluted from all the experiments taken place there. Every once in a while, a rumor leaks out which states the island is a place where biological warfare experiments take place. That seemed to be disproven by of all people, the Russians, who were allowed in 1994 to inspect the island. It is said it is just a place to conduct animal disease experiments to study why there are certain animal disease outbreaks. Our ancestors were fascinated with what they called freaks. Some were human, but many were animals. P.T. Barnum exhibited something called the Fiji Mermaid. It seemed to be some sort of mutation, but was actually a hoax. The head of a small monkey had been sewn to the body of a fish. It was exhibited in Barnum’s American History Museum in New York. Some say people back then before the American Civil War were much more gullible than those today, but I am not so sure. That particular exhibit did make Barnum a lot of money even though mermaids were thought of as beautiful women with the body of a fish who didn’t have ugly monkey heads. There is a condition known as bicephaly. It literally means two heads. It is said to be caused when the embryo does not split completely. There are records of a few two headed snakes. A snake with two heads could theoretically live a long life, but the chances are against this. In ancient time a two headed snake was a very bad omen. In ancient Greek mythology there was a two headed snake, but it looked different than what we would think, because it had a head on the front and a head on the back of its tail. Some ancient races had a way of breaking the bad omen, when a two headed snake was seen, but I don’t think if was very wise. Their answer was to pick it up and put it on your arm. Some mutations in animals are hardly noticeable by the average person. Take birds for example. It is possible for a bird to be an unusual color, or have unusual colored feathers. The is caused by the malfunction of a gene. Some breeders want to bring out these unusual colors. While it is not a mutation, it is interesting to note elephants have extra copies of a cancer fighting gene which protects them most of the time from getting cancer. They do occasionally get mutations however. One photo of a mutated elephant show it with two trunks. One seems to be functional and the other just dangles. Another elephant was born with a pinkish color to its skin. Recently it has been noticed after the Mozambican Civil War elephants had changed in only a decade. Thousand of elephants had been slaughtered for their tusks. After that, many elephants began to be born without tusks, which protected them from poachers. It is amazing this could have happened so fast, it is as if God was protecting them. When we talk about animals being born with two heads, there were some which were born with three. A three headed frog has been found and it was alive. It is one of the weirdest things I have ever saw. Another strange sight is the mountain lion with two mouths and two jaws. These are extremely unusual finds but not so with mutated sharks. Sharks with two heads are becoming more common. Scientists are baffled by this event. They don’t know if it is a pollution problem, a disorder or some kind of virus. While animals with more than one head always seem to make the internet news, there are many others which have different strange mutations. Take for instance the goat which was born with eight legs. That was not all however because that particular goat had both male and female organs. Scientists think they know the cause for this and it was the fact the goat had an undeveloped twin. There is one thing which has to be said about the animal kingdom, they don’t seem to shun other animals which seem to be mutated, and they don’t consider beauty over all other looks. Maybe we could learn something from them. A kitten was born which had only one optic nerve and it was manifested in the one eye in the center of its head. It was truly a cyclops kitten. I regret the fact that vets decided there was no place in the world for this kitten so they relieved it of its life. Speaking of cats, one type of mutation we never would have imagined was present on a house cat. It grew actual wings, with bones and all. It makes one wonder what could have accounted for this strange event. We know cats eat birds and somehow could his parents have ate a bird with changed part of their DNA which was then passed on to their offspring? As we read about some of these mutations, we have to ask ourselves, could mutations be developed which would be helpful to us, perhaps like the redundant gene in elephants which prevents most cancer or perhaps something else could be developed which is not visible, and would enable us to become stronger and faster humans?
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