One-Eyed Cyclops Calf With No Nose Born In India [Video]

A calf, which was born with just one large eye and no nose in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal recently, is being worshipped by local residents.

A video of the baby cow, released Sunday, shows the calf sticking out its tongue and gasping for breath. The calf was adopted by the villagers after it was abandoned by its mother.

"Ever since the calf was born, the people have crowded to see it. They are now considering it to be a miracle of God and have started worshipping it. The cow had been discarded by its mother and the women are feeding the cow. The people think that worshipping the cow is going to bring luck and prosperity to the family of whoever worships it,” a source said, the Sun reported.

The calf, however, is suffering from a rare birth defect called cyclopia, where the left and right hemispheres of the brain did not separate while in the womb.

The defect, which can occur both in human beings and animals, results in one eye, or sometimes partially fused or separate eyeballs. In some cases, it can also result in the absence of eyelashes and eyelids, underdeveloped jaw and deformed nose.

Those with the defect are usually stillborn or die early as they find it difficult to breathe.

In a similar incident in 2017, a calf with human-like head was born Uttar Pradesh, India. The animal had one mouth and a pair of eyes and ears which were human-like. The calf, however, died shortly after it was born and several people gathered to pay their respects to it. People believed it to be an incarnation of God, local daily India Today reported.

In another incident in 2015, a cow gave birth to a stillborn calf which had two bodies, four ears and eight legs in New Zealand. The mother was, however, rescued.