Woman in China Has Cat That Sprouted Wings

An elderly woman in the city of Xianyang recently discovered something disturbing about her cat. What appeared to be two small growths on the cat's back soon expanded into wings, according to the Huashang News. The online news site Ananova broke the report.

The owner of the tom cat, a woman identified as Granny Feng, says the wings make her pet look like a "cat angel." The fur-covered wings actually contain bones, and are about four inches in length. "At first, they were just two bumps, but they started to grow quickly," said Feng. "But after a month there were two wings," she reported to the The Huashang News.

Why the cat sprouted "wings" is uncertain, but Chinese experts say that they are likely not wings at all, but rather a genetic mutation. Such mutations are fairly common in animals, but such extreme mutation is rare. The wings are incapable of flight, and they should not prevent the cat from living a normal, healthy life.

Granny Feng noticed the changes in her cat during a time when it was being "sexually harassed" by other local cats. "A month ago, many female cats in heat came to harass him, and then the wings started to grow," she said in the Ananova report. Whether or not the harassment directly cause the "wings" to grow is unknown. Like cancer and other genetic abnormalities in humans, such a mutation could be caused by physical or mental stress. It is possible that the mutated genes stayed dormant and were activated by the duress the cat was under when dealing with other cats.

As the news of the "winged cat" spread like wildfire across the Internet, many forum posters joked that at least the cat wouldn't need to be rescued from high up in a tree. Other people suggested that the cat should lay off the Red Bull.

The story is just another mark on the chalkboard of the increasing number of bizarre animal deformities discovered in the last couple of years. In January of 2006 a cat by the name of "Cy" (short for Cyclops) was born with just one eye and no nose. The cat was born in the home of Traci Allen, who was obviously surprised by the kitten's appearance. "You don't expect to see something like that," she said in an article on the Internet site SMH. The kitten lived for just over a day. "Holoprosencephaly," which is responsible for numerous facial deformities, was to blame for the cat's condition, according to the US National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Some experts postulate that the decreasing quality of our environment is causing these deformities. Some pollutants have the capability to slightly alter DNA, resulting in two-headed snakes, one-legged frogs, etc.

Sources: No Author, "Cat Grows Wings." Ananova.; Associated Press, "Cyclops Kitten No Hoax." The Sydney Morning Herald