Albino Alligator
Dave Monroe
against.the.dave at gmail.com
Fri May 11 18:54:58 CDT 2007
Knoxville Zoo displays albino alligator
By ELIZABETH A. DAVIS, Associated Press Writer 10 minutes ago
This white alligator has it made in the shade. Without an alligator's
normal dark camouflaging color, the new inhabitant at the Knoxville
Zoo would not live long while exposed to predators or the sun.
In an exhibit made to look like the Louisiana bayou with tree stumps
and hanging moss, the 12-year-old American alligator spent one recent
afternoon basking under a heat lamp beside a warm pool with one claw
lazily dipped in the water. If outside, her skin would burn in the
sun.
An albino gene makes the alligator's skin white and her eyes pinkish,
and the rare find creates a popular exhibit at zoos around the
country.
The exhibit in Knoxville — marketed with the slogan "Look in Dem Eyes"
in reference to a legend that good luck will follow those who see the
animal — will last through Labor Day.
Zoo visitors paused in a dark lobby and peered through the glass
window at her. Occasionally, one eyelid would open and reveal an inner
membrane that makes the eye look milky, but otherwise the
alabaster-tinted body was still.
"Is she real?" is the most common question from visitors, says Phil
Colclough, assistant curator of herpetology at the zoo.
"Nobody believes she's real. They stare until she takes a breath or
moves her eyes or jumps in the pool."
Other zoos and tourist attractions have white alligators in the United
States, totaling around 50.
Some white alligators are albino, meaning they lack a dark pigment
called melanin, and their eyes appear reddish because of the blood
vessels underneath.
Another kind of white alligators are leucistic, meaning they have
white pigment and blue eyes. The Aquarium of the Americas in New
Orleans has leucistic alligators found in a Louisiana swamp in 1987.
Three leucistic gators were found in 2003 on Hilton Head Island, S.C.,
and later seized by state officials, who also arrested the men who
discovered them.
Knoxville's alligator is on loan from the Alligator Farm Zoological
Park in St. Augustine, Fla., which has about 30 animals that have been
acquired over the last 15 years from a commercial farmer in Cut Off,
La.
The albinos are found in the same nest every year and are believed to
be produced from the same male and female who both carry the recessive
gene for albinism, said David Kledzik, curator of reptiles in St.
Augustine.
The Florida park made a deal with the farmer to get the albinos. He
hatches and raises them until he is ready to give them up, he said.
"Every few years we get a call, 'Come get your albinos.' We go out
there and get the albinos. We may get six or eight a trip," Kledzik
said.
The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Ohio also has an albino on exhibit
from the Florida zoo.
The Knoxville Zoo exhibited a different albino alligator named Lily in
1997. The current alligator's name was decided by a contest and will
be announced Monday.
"The public likes them a whole lot," Colclough said. "I've been here
12 years, and hardly a week goes by that someone doesn't ask where the
white alligator is that was here 10 years ago."
___
On the Net:
Knoxville Zoo: http://www.knoxville-zoo.org/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070511/ap_on_sc/white_alligator
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