A photo of Kenny the white tiger, allegedly affected by Down syndrome, is often flashed on the Internet. It is stated that the deformation of the facial bones of the animal occurred as a result of this disease. Often there is a photo of Kenny sitting next to Willie's brother and you can clearly see the abnormal head of the white male.
In fact, the chromosome composition of animals is very different from that of humans, so that the gene mutations characteristic of Down syndrome can develop in them. This situation has arisen as a result of closely related crossing to fix the recessive gene of a rare white color. After all, all white tigers living in captivity now have one father.
It all started with a Bengal male named Mohan, caught in India in the fifties of the last century. On this male, zoologists discovered the effect of white color on the offspring: it occurs only with closely related crossing. Then there were experiments - father with daughter, sisters with brothers.
For 60 years, the genetic material of white tigers has become so impoverished that the phenotype has begun to degenerate. White individuals began to live less, their activity also decreased.
Kenny lived only ten years, which is half the species norm. However, he outlived many of his brothers and sisters, who did not last so much.
But have you ever seen "Kenny"?
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Kenny is the most white tiger, only "not marketable" type, because in his case the mutations did not go quite as we would like.
The light coat color of Bengal tigers is just a small mutation. They are not a separate species, not some new tiger race, but unfortunate freaks, by the standards of ordinary tigers.
After the last white tiger in the wild was killed in the second half of the last century, the only way to get new ones is to cross the existing ones with each other. And since there are not enough such individuals, what happens is what is called "incest." And there is nothing good here.
Tiger Kenny was relatively lucky, in addition to defects in appearance, he had brain problems, but had a meek disposition and was generally liked by the public. That is why they left to live, but how many white tiger cubs are "culled" because of too obvious deformities, no one will report. This is exactly what all breeders of demanded animal species do, weeding out mutants so as not to spoil the breed.
To be fair, cubs born with a large number of deviations are still not viable and die quickly. The whole disgusting thing is that white cats are in great demand in many zoos of the planet, and therefore people take risks time after time, without pity forcing tigers to produce offspring in order to leave only the best. This is called "selection" and judging by the likes of the late Kenny, there is still a long way to go to ultimate success.
Author: VseKakUZverei