A mutant calf with two heads, four eyes, two noses and two mouths has been born in northeastern India.
Rare footage taken at a farm in Amarpur, Tripura, shows the newborn struggling to stand on its feet under the weight of its heads, which are joined directly to each other.
A man then can be seen bottle feeding the animal, which is lying down on a bed of hay.
The baby has a condition called polycephaly which causes fused skulls, two pairs of eyes and one pair of ears.
Dr Pritam Sarkar, deputy director at Animal Resources Development Department, highlighted he has not heard of another care in the state in the last 10 to 15 years.
He said: ‘It is the rarest of the rare case. In such cases the survival rate is very low.
‘It is around 38% and it becomes very difficult to save the calf. It has two heads, two ears, and four eyes.’
It happened after farmer Chaitanna Das had used artificial insemination (AI) under the local government’s Mukhyamantri Unnoto Godhan Prakalpa (MUGP) scheme in a bid to increase the state’s milk supply.
It is used as a means of growing the herd without the costly expense of owning a bull.
Biologists say two-headed animals develop when a single fertilized egg does not separate completely or when a gene that controls for head width gets overexpressed.
Just weeks ago, another mutant calf became an attraction in Gangaikondan, south India.
In April last year, a cow with two heads also made headlines in North Macedonia after it was born in the village of Lazec.
At the time, farmer Vasko Petrovski said the veterinarian that examined the animal told him it was functioning normally and the owner was determined to keep the calf healthy and alive.
However, it is unclear if either of the two animals have are still alive.
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