Gorgeous “Strawberry” Leopard Discovered
We all know a leopard can’t change its spots, but it looks as if it can change its color… African leopards normally have tawny coats with black spots. But a male leopard with a strawberry-colored coat has been spotted in South Africa’s Madikwe Game Reserve.
Panthera President Luke Hunter suspects the pale leopard has erythrism, a little-understood genetic condition that’s thought to cause either an overproduction of red pigments or an underproduction of dark pigments.
“It’s really rare—I don’t know of another credible example in leopards,” said Hunter, whose group collaborates with National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative.
Don’t see much of a difference? Take a look at what a normal leopard looks like bellow.
[Cheers nationalgeographic]
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I'm surprised nobody mentions the golden tabby tiger. They are also sometimes called "strawberry tigers"… Anyway, they are a 'tiger version" of this coloration – the main difference is that they also have lots of white fur, more than in "regular" orange tigers. And golden tabby tigers are quite known – it doesn't seem they occur in the wild, but there are tens of them in captivity.