ALBANY, Ore – When Kyla King of Portland, Oregon tended to her barn cat and her newborn kittens, she found herself face-to-face with two tiny noses, two meowing mouths and four eyes shut. Little did she and her husband know it would melt the hearts of the Internet, CBS affiliate KOIN reported.
Naming the kitten “Biscuits and Gravy," her cat gave birth to what veterinarians call a “Janus” kitten, named after the Roman god often depicted as having two faces in mythology.
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One of the couple’s children asked if Kyla posted a picture of the rare kitten on her Facebook page, while BJ took it a step further and showed the kitten on a local community page which immediately created interest.
“I said we’ll probably get a little bit of reaction out of this and it took off really fast,” BJ said.
After consulting with their veterinarian, Kyla and her husband BJ were recommended to monitor the kitten’s condition and making sure it was properly taken care of.
"It doesn’t really know how to nurse properly because it has two mouths so I’ve been trying to feed it,” Kyla told KOIN. “And, I mean, I’m gonna do the best I can but these animals don’t usually live too long.”
Biscuits and Gravy have a special talent, though: it can meow from one mouth and eat from the other. Kyla says it may be the runt of the family.
“Janus" cats suffer from a rare congenital disease called disprosopus, or cranial duplication. They don’t usually live longer than a day and it is rare for them to live beyond that, according to National Geographic.
According to Guinness Book of World Records, one defied the odds. “Frank and Louie” lived until the age of 15 in 2014, becoming the world’s longest surviving Janus cat.
It is still unknown whether the kitten has its eyes conjoined in the middle.
“If it lives long enough — like a week — we’ll be able to tell what its eyes look like,” said Kyla.