A white and ginger kitten with an extremely rare genetic mutation has been taken to an animal shelter in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, USA.
The young cat, named Audio, has a pair of additional ears growing inside the ear canals of his regular ears.
Such cats are indeed rare; over the past 20 years, only 3 or 4 such cases have been reported in the media, two of which were from Russia.
Fortunately, this mutation does not harm the cat’s health, as the extra ears usually do not have ear canals and are simply skin growths.
Audio the kitten arrived at the shelter with three of his siblings, and the staff immediately noticed how special he was.
“The last cat with this mutation that we were able to find information about was brought from Turkey two years ago,” said a worker at the True Rescue shelter.
It was reported that Audio and the other kittens in his litter were found inside a cardboard box, taped shut without even holes for breathing. Someone had abandoned the kittens in the box in a rural area. Fortunately, they were discovered in time and brought to the shelter.
According to a study published in the Journal of Heredity back in 1957, this trait in cats is caused by a recessive mutation that only affects the outer ear flaps, not the inner ear mechanism.
However, the study also showed that many cats with this mutation had smaller eyes, underdeveloped jaws, and were less active.
Midas the Kitten from Turkey
