White Tiger
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White tigers are Bengal tigers or tigers of mixed Bengal/Amur ancestry with pink noses, white-to-creme coloured fur and black, grey or chocolate-colored stripes. Their eyes are usually blue, but may be green or amber. There are several hundred white tigers worldwide (this number increases annually), all of whom can trace their ancestry back to Mohan, a white Bengal tiger caught in Rewa, India.
Due to the opinion that their colouration is widely considered striking, white tigers have become popular attractions in zoos and entertainment that showcases exotic animals; the magicians Siegfried and Roy are famous for using several trained white tigers in their shows. Contrary to popular belief, white tigers are not an endangered species in their own right, but are a mutant form of the orange Bengal tigers.
White Bengal and White Amur Tigers
The tigers' color is caused by a recessive gene. The gene for white coloration is usually associated with Bengal tigers. The normal coloration of Bengal tigers is an orange ground colour with black coloration markings. The white mutation occurred in Bengal tigers.White tigers may have occurred in the Amur or Siberian tiger subspecies. Two registered pure-bred Amur brothers conceived at the Como Zoo may have carried the white gene (their most famous descendant being Tony, a founder of many American white tiger lineages). Their wild-caught parents were pure Amur tigers although one of these has also been described as a Bengal/Amur hybrid. These white Amur tigers have since been interbred with white Bengal tigers as well as leaving pure-bred Amur offspring. In addition to white generic tigers and white Bengal tigers, there are also purebred white Amur tigers in existence. Most white tigers bred in captivity are generic tigers, that is, a hybrid of two subspecies — most commonly, a mix of Bengal and Siberian ancestry.
Mohan
Mohan is the founding father of white Bengal tigers. He was captured as cub in 1951 when Maharajah Shri Martand Singh and his hunting party found a tigress with four 9 month old cubs, including one white one, while hunting in Bandhavgarh. All but the white cub were shot. The white cub was later captured and housed at the Maharajah's palace. He named it Mohan, meaning "Enchanter".In 1952, Mohan was bred to a normal-coloured wild tigress called Begum, but they produced only orange cubs because Begum did not carry the recessive white gene. Some of these cubs, which carried the white gene, were sent to zoos and, as a result, white tiger cubs have been born unexpectedly to orange parents in zoos. Mohan was then bred to his daughter Radha (who carried the white gene)and they produced a number of white cubs, including Mohini ("Enchantress") who later founded American lines of white tigers. Mohan died in 1969, aged almost 20. He was the last recorded wild-caught white tiger.
Mohini
Mohini, a descendent of Mohan, was officially presented to President Eisenhower on the White House lawn in 1960 and went to live at the Washington Zoo. She was a great attraction and the zoo wanted to breed more white tigers. At the time, no more white tigers were being allowed out of India so Mohini was mated to Sampson, her mother's normal colored brother and to her own normal-colored half-brother. Mohini was then bred to her own male offspring who carried the white gene. This resulted in the coveted white tigers and they were traded with other zoos in the USA.Tony
Tony, born in 1973, was the founder of many American white tigers lineages, especially of white tigers used in circuses. His grandfather was a registered Amur tiger who was bred to a Bengal tigress. Two of their cubs were bred together in a brother-sister mating and one of the results was Tony. Tony therefore carries mixed blood.Orissa White Tigers
White tigers also appeared in the Nandankanan Zoo in Orissa, India. Three white tiger cubs were born there in 1980. Their parents were normal-colored tigers called Deepak and Ganga who were not related to Mohan or to any of the white tigers being bred in zoos. One of their wild-caught ancestors would have carreid the recessive white gene. It showed up when Deepak was mated to his daughter Ganga. This lineage resulted in several white tigers in Nandankanan Zoo and in Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens, Mysore in 1984. However, none of their descendents now survive.Genetics
Contrary to popular belief, white tigers are not albino; true albino tigers would have no stripes. Since "white tigers" are not actually pure white, they are sometimes called chinchilla tigers in order to avoid confusion. Other names are ice tigers referring to their frosty appearance and not to their habitat. There is no evidence of true albinism in modern tigers; to date, all so-called "albino tigers" have so far been chinchilla tigers with unusually pale stripes. Part of the confusion is due to the misidentification of the chinchilla gene as an allele of the albino series (publications prior to the 1980s refer to it as an albino gene). The mutation is recessive to normal color which means that two normal color tigers carrying the mutant gene may produce white offspring; however two white tigers will produce only white cubs when bred together.
Although recessive to normal color, the chinchilla (silver) gene has both a dominant and recessive allele. When either one or two copies of the dominant chinchilla allele are inherited, this results in white tigers. The much rarer golden tabby tigers are probably due to two copies of the recessive chinchill allele being inherited. Tigers with neither of those alleles are normal color and do not carry the white tiger mutation.
Other genes, such as the wide band gene affect the amount of colour on the hair shaft while recessive colour dilution genes affect the hue. Inbreeding allows the effect of recessive genes to show up hence the variability in ground colour and stripe colour of white tigers.
Lydekker (1907) doubted the existence of albino tigers. However, true albino tigers were later recorded in 1922 at Mica Camp, Tisri in the Indian state of Cooch Behar when two pink-eyed albino young tigers were shot along with their mother. This was reported by Victor N Narayan in a Miscellaneous Note in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. A tawny tigress who was shot along with 2 colored and 2 sickly-looking white cubs (sub-adults) that had extended necks and pink eyes. white tigress whose stripes were visible only at certain angles of reflection.
A pure white tiger was described in the 1800s as showing ghost stripes: "A wholly white tiger, with the stripe-pattern visible only under reflected light, like the pattern of a white tabby cat, was exhibited in the Exeter Change Menagerie in 1820 and described by Hamilton Smith".
Baron Georges Cuvier "Animal Kingdom": A white variety of Tiger is sometimes seen, with the stripes very opaque, and not to be observed except in certain angles of light. We have engraved from a specimen of this variety, formerly in Exeter 'Change. This tigress had stripes that were visible only at certain angles of reflection.
R Lydekker, "The Royal Natural History": a white tiger, in which the fur was of a creamy tint, with the usual stripes faintly visible in certain parts, was exhibited at the old menagerie at Exeter Change about the year 1820.
Stripeless white tiger cubs occurred at Cincinnati Zoo, but were believed to be sterile. A stripeless female was obtained from the zoo by Siegfried and Roy and was successfully used in breeding. In 2004 a blue-eyed, stripeless white tiger was born at a wildlife refuge in Alicante, Spain. Its parents are normal orange Bengal tigers. The cub was named Artico (Spanish for Arctic). None of the pure white tigers currently in captivity a
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