I just saw on Yahoo an article about a little cat in China that has extra appendages on its back they're calling wings. I'll bet a lot of people think it's really cute.

Too bad these are probably extra limbs brought on by the cat's mother having eaten a terotogenic substance during its pregnancy, which interfered with the normal development of the embryo/fetus. China is known for having areas which deal with the unwanted task of recycling toxic metals, and entire villages are very sick from it. Might be something like that. Anyway, it's very very likely to be environmental. It is far less likely to be a genetic mutation.

The article mentioned another cat having the same thing. I don't remember if the other one was from the same area. Poor kitty.

Actually, now that I think again, maybe I'm wrong and it is simply a genetic thing. China has the human population and cat population to bring out a story like this before any other place. It's a far larger sample population.

I guess, having had to listen to my sisters during their medical training, my first thought is of the costs to the body when it varies too much from the usual specifications. Giant people, for instance, have serious health risks due to their size, often heart and lung problems. It's like a car with too small an engine for the weight of the car. It's in danger of burning out if you drive it like everyone else does with their cars. And of course their bones (the person's not the car's) have all sorts of problems like arthritis. Andre the giant died at age 47, I think it was, and in the years before he died he was in constant pain.

Conversely, so was the midget actor Michael Dunn. Dwarfism does the same thing -- many variations on the size and shape of the structure.