The Daily Telegraph

Vets discover first ‘gender-neutral’ kitten

- By Joe Pinkstone

A KITTEN born without any sexual organs has been discovered in what vets say is a world first.

Hope was part of an abandoned litter that made its way into the care of Cats Protection Tyneside, and regulation checks from vets revealed they were not noticeably male or female.

Hermaphrod­ite felines are rare but do occur, but there is no known documented case of a cat with no genitals.

Fiona Brockbank, Cats Protection’s senior field veterinary officer, said: “It was an incidental finding, nobody was aware of it.

“Hope came into care like all other cats who get relinquish­ed and when she had her vet check, underneath her tail just did not look as we would expect for either of the sexes.

“Hope didn’t have any external sexual organs and on the operation to look internally, there were no internal sexual organs.”

Dr Brockbank added that she has been unable to find anything in the scientific literature about a cat born with no sexual organs.

But despite her unique anatomy, Hope had no issues going to the toilet and has been adopted by Jessi Bennett, a student at Newcastle University studying for a master’s in animal behaviour, who wrote her dissertati­on on cat genetics and works part-time at Cats Protection.

There has been no genetic analysis done on the kitten, who has been renamed as Beans by her new owner.

Ms Bennett said she was looking for an energetic kitten to keep her other cat, Morbius, company and the 15-weekold Beans was a perfect match.

“I thought we would be a great match but I didn’t realise the rarity of what they had. I didn’t choose the cat based on that.”

“We are quite happy having our little gender-neutral cat,” she said.

 ?? ?? The abandoned 15-week-old animal is the only known case of a cat with no genitals
The abandoned 15-week-old animal is the only known case of a cat with no genitals

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