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This specimen is a 100% genuine deformed piglet suffering from the cyclopic mutation. This is NOT a gaff, but a very rare occurence in nature.

She has been preserved using modern taxidermy techniques, and is free from odour or bacterial infestation.

This mutation is the result of a deficiency in the gene named Sonic the Hedgehog. SHH was originally discovered in fruit flies when it was found that a mutation in this gene caused hairs to grow from fruit fly larvae resulting in the appearance of a hedgehog.

In mammals this gene controls bilateralism. If a there is a lack of Sonic Hedgehog during embryonic development the hemispheres of the forebrain fuse together into a single unit resulting in the formation of one singular eye and no pituitary gland. As a result, the skull has no choice but to form around the single existing eye leaving the animal’s nose to grow a out of the forehead into an ill defined trunk-like proboscis. Other associated defects are the incredible under-bite resultant from developmental problems in the upper palette and one singular cheek bone which traverses the entire fore-section of the skull.

An excess of the SHH gene causes another common mutation which is the development of two fully a developed faces sharing between them three eyes rather than two.