Due To A Genetic Condition, This Cat's Face Is Split Into Two Different Colors

Mar 16, 2020 by apost team

An Argentinan cat named Quimera has a perfectly symmetrical half black and half orange face. The black side of her face has a bright blue eye, while the orange side has an orange eye. This is why Quimera is considered to be a chimera cat.

In Greek mythology, a chimera is a terrifying monster with body parts that come from different animals, usually a lion, goat, and serpent or dragon. It is also often depicted with three heads, one from each animal.

Chimeras do exist in the real world and have a genetic condition. As reported by The New Republic, Virginia Papaioannou, a professor of genetics and development at Columbia University, explained that the genetic chimera is a “composite individual” composed of cells from at least two different embryos. If the embryos fuse very early during development, they will produce an individual with two sets of genes.

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Quimera is sometimes described as a “two-faced” cat because one half of her face is orange while the other half is black. The black side of her face has a bright blue eye, while the orange side has an orange eye. The split continues down Quimera’s chest, but the colors switch sides. Papaioannou, for the record, isn’t convinced that Quimera is actually a chimera. She believes that she’s an ordinary tortoiseshell with unusual markings.

Venus is another Internet cat who is often described as a chimera. Like Quimera she is “two-faced”: One half of her face is black, and the other half is orange, and her eyes are, respectively, green and blue.

Despite her striking looks, Quimera is very much an ordinary cat. Her Instagram page, which has over 91,000 followers, shows her acting like a typical cat. Quimera likes to hide in boxes, cuddle with her human, and paw at the computer.

Narnia is another chimera cat with a split face – and he isn’t a tortoiseshell or calico. One half of his face is black, while the other half is gray. Both his eyes are blue and most of his body is solid black. Narnia was born in 2017 at the Cattery of Grace in France, which specializes in breeding British Shorthairs and British Longhairs. Jean-Michel Labat, an animal photographer, began taking pictures of him when he was a kitten.

How can you tell if your cat is a chimera? Chimerism, the condition of being a chimera, can sometimes cause changes that are more subtle than the split face color scheme seen in felines like Quimera. For example, a cat may look perfectly normal – but have two different blood types. It’s still a chimera.

Chimerism can also affect the reproductive organs. An ordinary-looking female cat may actually have male reproductive organs hidden inside the female genitalia. This cat would go undetected unless a veterinarian performed surgery on it.

In most cases, however, a curious owner would have to have their cat undergo DNA testing. They can have a vet do it or order a kit from a company like Basepaws. If they do the latter, they would collect samples of the cat’s hair and cheek cells, and mail them to the company’s genetics lab. In addition to telling whether a cat is a chimera, the DNA tests can identify their ancestral breeds and determine their risk for developing certain conditions or diseases.

Can you buy a chimera cat? Probably not. Chimera cats don’t belong to any specific breed. In addition, chimera cats are not always easy to recognize as such. A cat owner isn’t likely to find that their cat has two different blood types unless their vet performs a blood test, for example. A person may get lucky and find a split-face cat at an animal shelter, but the odds of that happening are slim.

Have you ever heard of a chimera cat before or were you surprised to find out they exist? Let us know in the comments and be sure to pass this article along.