When I saw this photo, I thought it was a picture of a toy. I don't have time to blog the details today; if you're interested, you can read about white lions at Wikipedia. A couple items to note:
- Like the leucistic alligator I featured earlier this week, this is another white animal that is NOT an albino. The whiteness in lions is caused by a recessive gene for a color inhibitor.
- They are not common in nature because the whiteness serves as a selective disadvantage during hunting.
- They have been considered divine by local aboriginal populations.
Reposted from 2009 to add this photo of a leucistic giraffe:
“Omo is leucistic, meaning many of the skin cells are incapable of making a pigment. Some are, so she is pale but not pure white, with red or blue eyes, as a true albino would be,” he explained.
“Omo is the only pale giraffe we are currently aware of, but we have also observed leucistic waterbuck, Cape buffalo and ostrich in Tarangire.She will probably be killed by a hunter.
Photo credit: Derek Lee/Caters News.
Nature is fascinating. Thanks for posting this.
ReplyDeleteOmo was the name of a washing powder, produced by one of the UK soap conglomerates, in the 1950s & I think into the sixties and perhaps later as well. It was famed for its ability to wash clothes very white.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.unilever.com/brands/our-brands/omo.html
It was Unilever, which originates from Lever Brothers and their factory village, Port Sunlight on the Wirral in north west England, formerly part of Cheshire.
I have visited the Lady Lever Art Gallery which is still in situ.
Gosh, according to the Lady Lever Art Gallery's website it is now one of the Group of UK national museums, in the Liverpool area, which were significantly increased as a group by the then Governement in the 1980s, in response to the collapsed heavy industries, previously centred on the Liverpool area - gateway from the Cotton States of North America.
Matters came to a head, whilst I was still working in Liverpool, with riots in the summer of 1981 & on a lesser scale in the Everton district in the Summer of 1982. Subsequently there was much 'gentrification' and public investment in facilities that boosted tourism, including the Maritime Museum with its section on slavery. Slavery was one of the major commercial factors in the rapid growth of Liverpool and its shipping, with ships being built, over the water at Birkenhead, on the aforementioned Wirral Peninsula.
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ladylever/
Oh how a dyspraxic/DCD mind works tangentially as it rambles away?
I thought a white lion should be named Kimba?
ReplyDelete