White Tigers

WHITE TIGERS

All photos by Christina Bush


All white tigers are actually Bengal tigers which have inherited 2 recessive genes controlling pigmentation.  Unlike albino tigers which are 100% white with no stripes, white tigers still have black stripes, making them almost identical to an orange bengal tiger except for their white coloring.  







 White tigers have a distinctly pink nose, blue eyes and white or creamy colored fur.  They are often much larger than their orange brothers and sisters. 






 In the wild, white tigers are extremely rare.  They carry a gene that is present in around one in every 10,000 tigers.







 White tigers are not a separate sub-species of tiger.







 A white tiger can sell as for as much as $100,000 in the black market so a great deal of breeding is done for nothing more than financial gain.







 Many times white tigers suffer from distorted spines, mental deficiency, crossed eyes and low tolerance to illness and disease.







 The scientific name for the white tiger is:  Panthera Tigris Tigris







The white tiger is one of the rarest cats in the world, with only about 200 known to exist today, and probably none that exist in the wild.







 The last time one was known to be alive in the wild was in 1958.







These tigers are not albinos.