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Albino Alligators
GATORLAND ORLANDO NEWS
SENSITIVE SKIN: These captive baby albino gators need a special roof over their enclosure to prevent their pale skin from getting sunburned.
This past fall, three adorable baby alligators hatched at Gatorland, a wildlife park in Florida. They all had completely white scales instead of the usual dark-gray ones. The gators have a rare condition called albinism. Their bodies don’t produce melanin—the pigment that colors many animals’ feathers, fur, scales, or skin.
The park bred the alligators as part of a new exhibit. If they’d been born in the wild, they likely wouldn’t have survived, says Bill Zeigler, senior vice president of animal programs at the Chicago Zoological Society in Illinois. That’s because albino animals’ white coloration makes it difficult for them to hide from predators.
The Punnett square below shows the chances that offspring will inherit a particular trait. Albinism is a recessive trait. To be colorless, an organism has to inherit two recessive genes, or units of hereditary material—one from each parent. An offspring with one gene for albinism and one typical gene will have typical coloring.
SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
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