Personal Injury Law

Two heads, seven legs, mutants amongst us

By Dr. Doug Powell

About 25 years ago, my ex was working as a veterinary intern and gave me a call. She said, you have to come see this.

A calf had been born with two heads and was at the vet school in Guelph and still alive. The heads were mirror images of each other. It was sorta freaky, but then again, so is most biology.

So I wasn't that surprised when USA Today reported yesterday that a seven-legged calf (right) had been delivered on Thursday in Colorado.

The staff at the Steamboat Veterinary Hospital said the Black Angus calf, which was delivered by Caesarean section, had two spines but one head. One leg also had two hooves.

The calf lived for only about 10 minutes.

Veterinarian Lee Meyring says the birth resulted from an incomplete splitting of the embryo into twins.
 

Full post as published by BarfBlog on May 24, 2009 (boomark / email).