Polymelia

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Polymelia is the birth defect of having five or more limbs. It can also result in a shrunken or deformed limb. For example, a child might be born with two left hands, out of which only one is functional.

Sometimes the baby started as conjoined twins, but one twin degenerated completely except for one or more limbs attached to the other twin.

Sometimes small extra legs between the normal legs are caused by the body axis forking in the dipygus condition.

Sometimes there is an extra limb on a normal single body axis, as in the case when in early 2006 in China, a child named Jie-jie was born who had two unusually well-developed left arms. The doctors stated it was hard to decide which arm would be surgically removed; the front left arm has now been removed, but more operations will be needed to make the other left arm work as well as can be managed.

Frogs in the USA sometimes are affected by polymelia: see Ribeiroia.

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[edit] References

Avian Diseases, 1985 Jan-Mar;29(1):244-5. Polymelia in a broiler chicken., Anderson WI, Langheinrich KA, McCaskey PC.: "A polymelus monster was observed in a 7-week-old slaughterhouse chicken. The supernumerary limbs were smaller than the normal appendages but contained an equal number of digits.".