When you go to the zoo and see a white tiger, it captivates you, seeing such a majestic animal, but have you ever stopped and wondered why these animals are white? Most people believe that the white tiger is its own species and is endangered so it must be protected but they are very wrong. The white tiger may be beautiful on the outside but on the inside in its genetic DNA its a very different story.
The White Tiger or Panthera tigris tigris is a subspecies of the Bengal tiger and has a white coat because of severe inbreeding through brother to sister, mother to son, and father to daughter, which causes a genetic mutation in a single pigment gene called SLC45A2.(Xu et al., 2013) The white Bengal tiger is found throughout the Indian subcontinent, but only a mere 12 white tigers have been spotted in the wilds of India over the last 100 years. The last white tiger seen in the wild was shot and killed in 1958.(Xu et al., …show more content…
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