Aw.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=nm/kitten_dc

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany (Reuters) - A four-eared German kitten has been given a new home after a German animal shelter was deluged with requests to adopt the animal born six months ago with the genetic defect.


Reuters Photo



"We wanted to make sure the people were looking for a normal cat and not a gag to make an exhibition out of her," Enrico Schlag, a worker at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen animal shelter, said on Thursday.

"We've found a completely normal family for her that has already adopted cats from us in the past."

The shelter in the foothills of the Alps in southern Germany received dozens of calls after local media published pictures of Lilly. Reuters, which reported the kitten's search for a home on Wednesday, also received numerous offers from readers around the world eager to adopt her or make donations to the shelter.

Tessy Loedermann, head of the shelter, said Lilly will first be neutered and held at the shelter for another two weeks.

Loedermann said the black-and-white cat with the extra set of ears was "not a freak" but rather an energetic, loving and well-adjusted kitten.

"She is not a mutant," Loedermann said. "She's just a plain and ordinary kitten."

Lilly, born on a farm near the winter resort town famous for hosting the 1936 Winter Olympics (news - web sites), has an extra pair of slightly smaller, non-hearing ears just behind the normal two. Vets have attributed the phenomenon to a gene malfunction.

"The front ears are completely normal while the two ears directly behind them are about half the size and not fully developed," Schlag said.

She was given to the shelter last week because the family had more cats than they could care for.

"We're trying to treat her as a completely normal kitten and the other cats here have played with her in a normal manner as well," Schlag said. "She hasn't been ostracized by the other cats at all. She's a bundle of energy but likes to be cuddled."



I just have one thing to say:

Lilly is more of an anamoly than we've been lead to think :mischief:

Oh my!

German monster mutants take over world!

More at 11.

Four-eared kitten! :glee: :cute: :yeah:

Neuter it? No! See if you can breed it to produce a new race of super cats! It would dominate cat shows across the world! Now what to call it... :mischief:

:mad: It's part of another German plot to take over the world! The kitten must have escaped from one of their secret military bases! :blink:

the only way of breeding it would be to find another 4 eared kitten of the opposite sex and breed them, then either breed their kittens that have the 4 ears with their siblings or find more 4 eared kittens out there.

You have to saturate the family line with the 4 ear trait.

But relax Kane...they won't get far with neutering Lilly :mischief:

You know nothing of breeding.

Just take a normal cat. Depending on how the trait is carried, all, half, a quarter, an eigth, or none of the offspring could have four ears.

Just keep those that have the trait and inbreed them.

This is how dog varieties are created, to get useful traits. They'd do the same with cats except that cats are entirely useless wastes of skin, so nobody needs to breed them.

And you know nothing about reading my posts correctly. What you just said is exactly what I said.

You breed the stupid cat and when it produces a 4 eared kitten you breed it again either with its sibling, parents or another 4 eared kitten from a different family. While plain inbreeding (including those offspring which do not display the 4 eared trait) would work to a certain extent it tends to weaken the bloodline and creates a whole host of problems. Compare modern day Siamese cats with those of the early 1900s.

My original post did suggest inbreeding but it would be more preferable in the long run to just find another feline family line sporting a 4 eared kitten. If one cannot be found then nature has a good reason and we meddling humans had best just stay out of the way.

this is what i was contradicting :P

And inbreeding is not only the ONLY way to select for a trait, it is the BEST way. strains come out purer and stronger that way, because recessive traits show up quickly and are culled. It makes much healthier bloodlines than the random breeding with an unknown set of traits -- in the limited set from an original two parents, all the bad traits will shake themselves out in a few generations with careful culling.

The reason that incest is so taboo to humans, is that culling is not acceptable or even thinkable for sentients, even if it only means sterilization. We could lose all so-called "negative" traits that way and become stronger, taller, whatever, true -- but we would no longer be human, but monsters.

Time enough for love is a really good book.

how so???

You could find another 4 eared kitten of the opposite sex within the same litter :mischief:

Best odds would be to constantly breed cats showing the 4 ears instead of just breeding the same family...it'd take less time...and avoid those other problems

Yes, but assuming that having four ears is an extremely rare genetic defect (come on, how many four eared kittens do you know? seriously!), then only breeding four eared cats would never work. So you've got to start somewhere else.

And I believe he was contradicting that you said the only way to breed them was to find a four eared cat of the opposite sex.

then I stand by my original argument that Kundor is an idiot and can't read :mischief:

since I used that as only an option and I stated the other option too :P

You quite clearly said that the only way was to start with another four eared kitten of the oposite sex.

Maybe I can't read either? :unsure:

that was the other option...ignore the "then" and add "or"

give it up already :P

your iniquity's been exposed!

Well, maybe it's a dominate trait. I think it would be really cool to create a cat breed with four ears. Maybe with a little time, they could become fully functional.

Super Kitties! :cute: :yeah: :cute:

Fully functional super hearing cats!!! Imagine what you could do with that kind of power.

You could... you could... TAKE OVER THE WOOOORRRLLLLDDDD!!! :mwaha:

:cute: :cute: :cute:

Not to mention spying on the mice!