Le chat à deux visages

No, its not Photoshopped. Venus is a cat unlike any other. One half of her face is solid black with a green eye, and the other ginger with tabby stripes and a blue eye. 
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Now an Internet star, the remarkable cat’s beginnings were humble. In a stroke of luck, Venus’s owner spotted her as a kitten amongst a litter of strays in a photo her husband took whilst working on a dairy farm in North Carolina. She fell instantly in love and rang the farm owner at once to ask if she could adopt her. Two days later her husband flew interstate to bring little Venus home. 

Internet stardom was almost inevitable when pictures of the unique cat began circulating online. She now has over 166k likes on her Facebook page, a popular Youtube channel and a stuffed plush toy replica to her name. 

Many were convinced she was a hoax, until she appeared in the flesh on the Today Show and was investigated by The National Geographic.  

Il ya un certain nombre de théories quant à la cause de l'apparence inhabituelle de Vénus. Elle est largement considérée comme une «chimère», un terme inventé après la bête mythologique composée de nombreuses parties d'animaux différents. En biologie, une chimère est un animal dont les cellules contiennent deux types d'ADN, après que deux embryons se fusionnent. Essentiellement, un chat de gingembre et le chat noir pourrait être devenu un dans Vénus, sa double nature se manifestant dans son visage.  
 

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But if Venus isn’t a chimera, what else could explain her unique looks? Simple luck, is the most likely other possible cause. It is feasible the cells in one side of her face were randomly activated so the fur turned black, whilst the other side was activated to turn orange. From this, a one in a million fur pattern was produced.   

According to some experts, Venus uniqueness is not just limited to her split face. Her single, inexplicable blue eye is also highly unusual. Blue eyes are rare outside of the Siamese breed, and are otherwise usually present in cats with a coat that is largely white in colour. Since a tiny patch on Venus’s chest is the only section of white fur, her eye is yet another oddity in her already remarkable appearance. 

Whatever the true cause of Venus’s mysterious looks, her star looks set to continue to rise.