Frank and Louie is a cat who was born with two faces, so he has two names. Does that mean he has 18 lives?

It almost seems so now that he has earned a spot as the longest lived Janus cat in the new edition of the Guinness World Records (Guinness has dropped the word “book” from the name in this digital age).

The cat's owner is a Worcester woman named Marty Stevens who has owned Frank and Louie since a local breeder brought him into Tufts Veterinary Clinic to be euthanized when he was a day old. Marty was a veterinary nurse at Tufts at the time and offered to take him home.

The prognosis, however, was not good. Janus cats, named after the Roman god with two faces, are extremely rare and seldom live more than a few days after being born. Often they die within hours. But under Marty's dedicated care Frank and Louie flourished. He turned 12 years old on Sept. 8.

Frank and Louie has two mouths, two noses and two normal eyes with one larger nonfunctioning eye in the center. “That was the first eye to open up when he was two days old so I had a little Cyclops for a while,” Marty said. That's not an endearing image, and, as often happens with animals and even people who are not exactly like everyone else, Frank and Louie often draws a shocked reaction from onlookers. But that first impression quickly fades.

“He's just so affectionate and sweet he usually wins people over,” Marty said.

The cat has two faces, but only one head and brain, so the faces react in unison and not as separate entities. Also, two faces doesn't mean two cans of cat food every morning. The cat's right side — or Frank's side — is connected to an esophagus while Louie's isn't, so Frank eats for two.

If you look at the cat from the left he looks completely normal. Look at him from the right and he does as well. It is only when you look straight at him that you can see how unusual he is.

Read more about Frank and Louie, twofaced cat at http://www.telegram.com/article/20110...

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