A Monkey Faced Piglet, Genetics and Homer’s Cyclops

In a strange and unsettling turn of events, villagers in Fengzhang village, Xiping township, flocked to the home of Feng Changlin after news of a peculiar piglet spread. According to Feng, the piglet in question is truly surprising, with a monkey-like appearance that includes two thin lips, a small nose, and large eyes. To make matters even more bizarre, the piglet’s rear legs are significantly longer than its forelegs, causing it to jump instead of walk. Fengzhang village is part of Fenghua District in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China.

Feng’s wife, who was equally shocked by the piglet’s appearance, revealed that it was one of five newborns from a sow that the family had raised for nine years. “I was really frightened when I first saw it,” she admitted. “But our son likes to play with it and even feeds it milk, so we haven’t gotten rid of it yet.”

Despite the piglet’s frightening appearance, neighbors have urged the couple to keep it and observe how it develops as it matures. With its unique features and strange behavior, this monkey-faced piglet is certainly causing quite a stir in the community. Only time will tell if the piglet’s appearance will change as it grows older, but for now, it remains a curious and unsettling sight for all who see it.

Okay, wow. That’s some mutation. Human-pig hybrid embryos have been approved in the UK. How about China?

NOTE: China is a leader in pig genetics.

Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Danish Committee of Pig Breeding and Production (DCPBP) jointly announce the public release of pig genomic sequences. The released sequence data include 3.84 million pieces of the genomes of five different domestic pig breeds from Europe and China. The data are generated from the first large scale pig genome sequencing effort, the Sino-Danish Pig Genome Project, started in 2001 on the basis of a long standing collaboration of scientists and research institutions from China and Denmark. – continues on science daily

Thanks to SilviusMD for pointing out that this is the result of a neurological-facial malformation called Holoprosencephaly. “The cause is thought to be a genetic alteration, in this case probably due to environmental exposure to certain chemicals.”

Homer’s Cyclops

With some trepeidation, I did a google image search for “Holoprosencephaly” and found some Cyclops looking individuals. One startling photo showed baby with its two eyes in a central eye socket … and no nose. So, it’s not just pigs. This happens occasionally in humans too. This same developmental disorder caused the cyclops kitten you may have seen a while back. Holoprosencephaly is primarily caused by mutations in several key genes related to brain development, with SHH, ZIC2, SIX3, and TGIF1 being the most notable. Mutation causing factors in the environment are also implicated.

It would be interesting to figure out which chemicals might have caused this… but keep in mind that legends of a Cyclops goes way back, so modern pollutants can’t be the only cause. Yes, I think Cyclopes were real.

Hesiod describes one group of cyclopes and Homer describes another. In Hesiod’s Theogony, Zeus releases three Cyclopes, the sons of Uranus and Gaia, from the dark pit of Tartarus. They provide Zeus’s thunderbolt, Hades’ helmet of invisibility, and Poseidon’s trident, and the gods use these weapons to defeat the Titans. In a famous episode of Homer‘s Odyssey, the hero Odysseus encounters the Cyclops Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon and a nereid (Thoosa), who lives with his fellow Cyclopes in a distant country. The connection between the two groups has been debated in antiquity and by modern scholars.^[2]

This from Science Daily:

Homer’s Cyclops might be myth, but a disorder that can cause babies to be born with only one eye is very real. Scientists from Cleveland, Ohio, and Paris, France, reached an important milestone in understanding one of the molecular causes of a rare, but serious birth defect, Holoprosencephaly. …a known mutation of the TG interacting factor (TGIF) gene, called TGIF.P63R, causes Holoprosencephaly, which affects brain and skull formation. In particular, researchers found that this mutation not only does not produce the protein necessary for healthy fetal development, but the mutant protein may actually destroy the small amounts of the normal protein that is needed. … Holoprosencephaly occurs when the embryonic forebrain fails to divide into the two lobes that make up the cerebral hemispheres. As a result, people with this disorder have a single-lobed brain structure and severe skull and facial defects. In most cases, the disorder is so severe that fetuses die before birth. In relatively “mild” cases, babies may be born with near-normal brain development, but they usually have facial deformities affecting the eyes, nose, and/or upper lip

For the curious: Could a monkey and a pig mate and have an offspring? No. Except when humans mess with their DNA, animals with different numbers of chromosomes can not produce offspring. Here are some chromosome numbers from wikipedia:

A tiger has 66 chromosomes. What about a pig and a cat? Both domestic cats and domestic pigs have had their entire genome sequenced.

ANSWER: Chromosome number is not the only reproductive barrier between species. Even if a human could mate with a hare, Bugs Bunny would not result.

When they meet, the chromosomes from one parent need to be similar enough to those from the other parent, so that when their genes combine, they produce something that lives. While the human and the hare each have 23 pairs of chromosomes, there is not enough of a match up.

Review: Chromosomes contain pairs of DNA molecules. Each human egg or sperm contains 2.85 billion DNA base pairs in 23 separate chromosomes. Each human chromosome has from 50 million to 250 million DNA pairs. A “gene” is a group of DNA pairs on a chromosome. Humans may have as few as 20,000 genes.

Here is a picture of human male chromosomes:

I haven’t found any photos of hare chromosomes… yet.

Update:  He is a year older now and still seems to be doing well. The london paper had these new photos.  Interesting, that a genetic mutation can make a pig face look similar to a monkey face.

Little hint about evolution, isn’t it? I’m not saying a pig can evolve into a monkey, but this interesting genetic error shows that all mammals share genes and mutations can cause quite different looking animals over a long span of time. Mammals have been around for about 200 million years. (Imagine you live to be 80 years old 2 million 500 thousand times…)  That’s a looooooooong time and a lot of mutations.

Wow, that’s some pig.