As well as potentially leading to the emergence of many potentially life-threatening health conditions, offspring of inbreeding can face bizarre and unexpected abnormalities that affect their daily lives and change how they are perceived by the world around them. One example of this are the Fugate family of Kentucky, known as the “Blue Fugates.” The Fugates settled in Hazard, Kentucky, in the early 19th century. The community was tiny, with little infrastructure to allow for a wide gene pool. In around 1920, a couple married who both carried the recessive gene for methemoglobinemia, a condition which causes blueness in the skin. Four of the couple’s seven children had a blue skin tone, a rare quirk that continued among the children’s descendants in the community due to inbreeding.
In Zimbabwe, the Vadoma tribe based in the southern valley of the Zambezi are known as the “Ostrich People,” as they are often born with feet that resemble those of a bird. Research has found that this is a genetic mutation caused by inbreeding within the tribe: rather than bird feet, those who express the mutation are born with their middle three toes missing.
