A cat owner was left gobsmacked when she discovered that her pet kitten was actually an incredibly rare wolf-cat.
Brianna Walton, 29, feared her seven-month-old kitten Gracie could be sick, after she started losing huge clumps of fur.
The cat lover, from Maine in the United States, was fostering two adult cats when one gave birth to a litter of kittens which contained Gracie.
Brianna, who works as a photographer, decided to keep hold of Gracie as a pet for herself, but at just five weeks old she realised something wasn't right when she began losing all of her fur.
"Gracie was about five weeks old when she started to lose facial hair," she recalled. "She then lost most of her hair completely over the next two weeks and I became very concerned that she was sick so I brought her to the vet.
“They did one look over with no tests and concluded it was probably a fever but that she was perfectly healthy otherwise and needed no further special attention.”
While Brianna was convinced her pet feline might've been suffering with some kind of undiagnosed illness, she was completely baffled when a vet said it was actually caused by a rare genetic mutation, making her a wolf-cat.
Wolf-cats, which are also known as Lykoi, are domestic cats with just one coat of fur that molts every six months, leaving them with a striking resemblance to werewolves.
After learning that her cat is in fact healthy, Brianna started sharing clips of the unique looking feline on TikTok, and she quickly became a viral sensation, thanks to her unusual appearance.
"Gracie looks like a werewolf and I think that's the coolest," Brianna said.
"I had hoped it might (go viral) because I truly felt like she was one-of-a-kind kitty with a very special story, so I am glad it did.
“People say they had never heard of a wolf cat but now that they have, they need one.”
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