At last researchers found a new clue about
what make white tiger’s fur white. But unfortunately nowadays white tigers are
only seen in zoo. The white tiger is a receding mutant of the Bengal tiger. White
tigers appear frequently in literature, video games, television, and comic
books. Such examples include the Swedish rock band Kent, which featured a white
tiger on the cover of their best-selling album Vapen & ammunition in 2002.
This was a tribute to the band's home town
Eskilstuna, as the local zoo in town had white tigers from the Hawthorn Circus
as its main attraction. The white tiger has also been featured in the video of the
song "Human" by the popular American Synth-rock band The Killers.
White Tiger is also the name of an American glam metal band from the 1980s.
Their spectacular white coats are produced by
a single change in a known pigment gene, according to the study.
"The white tiger represents part of the natural genetic
diversity of the tiger that is worth conserving, but is now seen only in
captivity,"
Shu-Jin Luo of China's Peking University claimed. Luo, Xiao Xu, Ruiqiang Li, and
their colleagues advocate a proper captive management program to maintain a
healthy Bengal tiger population including both white and orange tigers.
They said that it might even be worth considering the reintroduction of white tigers into their wild habitat.
All white tigers have blue eyes; it is not a
species, just a variation of the normal tiger. They are worth $60,000, only
5,000-7,400 tigers are left- 200 of them being white tigers.
White tigers have been classified by
scientists into eight subspecies: Indian (or Bengal), Indo-Chinese, Sumatran,
Amur (or Siberian), South China, Caspian (extinct), Java (extinct), and Bali
(extinct).
White tiger cubs are produced when the
recessive gene for the color white is inherited from both parents. A white
tiger only has white genes for its offspring to inherit; therefore two white
tigers mated together produce only white cubs. In 1960 the Smithsonian Zoo
received a gift from India, Mohini a rare white Bengal tiger.
The researchers mapped the genomes of a
family of 16 tigers living in Chimelong Safari Park, including both white and
orange individuals. They then sequenced the whole genomes of each of the three
parents in the family. Those genetic analyses led them to a pigment gene,
called SLC45A2, which had already been associated with light coloration in modern
Europeans and in other animals, including horses, chickens, and fish.
The variant found in the white
tiger primarily inhibits the synthesis of red and yellow pigments but has
little to no effect on black, which explains why white tigers still show characteristic
dark stripes. Captive white tigers sometimes do show abnormalities,
such as crossed eyes, but Luo says any frailties are likely the responsibility
of humans, who have inbred the rare tigers in captivity.
This is a blog post from one of
our co-authors Aranyak Ghosh. If you would like to contribute
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About the Author
Aranyak Ghosh is a blogger from Kolkata, India. Apart from Blogging, he loves to watch action movies, and football games. He mainly writes about social media affairs and recent changes in technological world.
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