Two faced cat beats all odds!

Now I know that this isn't exactly breaking news and some of you may have heard this story before, but I have only just come across this incredible animal and felt it was definitely worthy of a spot on Animal News. 

For those of you who don't know, this is the story of Frankie and Louis the two faced cat who has beaten all odds and survived until the ripe old age of 13!
Frankie and Louis are what is known as a Janus Cat - Janus being the Roman God who had two faces - meaning he (they?) were born with two faces, two mouths, two noses and three eyes. 

Photo Credit: Steven Senne, Associated Press. 

Similar deformities are often seen in conjoined twins but this cat is not the result of an incomplete separation of two embryos. The scientific term for this is Disprosopus, or cranial duplication, and is the result of an increase of the protein Sonic Hedgehog homolus (yes...sonic hedgehog is a REAL protein) during embryonic development. 

Animals with this condition usually suffer multiple ailments, such as cleft pallet, which usually cause the animals to die before or soon after they are born. 
Miraculously, Frankie and Louis did not suffer any of these ailments and have beaten all the odds by living to see 13!
At just a day old their original owner brought them into the vets to be euthanased but Marty Stevens, who worked at the veterinary surgery at the time, rescued the kitten and took him (them?) in. 
For the first three months of their life Marty used feeding tubes to make sure they didn't choke but it turns out that Frankie and Louis only use one mouth to eat. They can also only see out of their two outer eyes, the middle one can't even blink!

Now 13, Frankie and Louis have earned themselves a spot in the Guinness World Records as the longest living Janus animal! 

Meet Frankie and Louis