Rare White Kangaroo Seen Hopping Around In Australia's Queensland Has Internet Raving About It
While some thought the white kangaroo to be an albino, an expert said it’s actually a leucistic kangaroo.
New Delhi: A rare white kangaroo was spotted in Australia’s Queensland, and social media can’t have enough of it.
The animal was seen at a property outside of Longreach Wednesday, according to a social media user, Sarah Kinnon, who posted photos of it on Facebook.
“It blew me away really,” the Nogo Station resident was quoted as saying in a Daily Mail report.
"I was just out with my husband, we were dropping some rams back to the paddock, and there was a white kangaroo,” she said.
While Sarah Kinnon's post is not public, reports said her video has generated a lot of interest with comments pouring in in large numbers.
While some thought the kangaroo to be an albino, an expert said it’s actually a leucistic kangaroo.
“Just looking at the picture, it looks to have black eyes, it's hard to see for sure but that suggests it's not an albino,” Paul Oliver, the Queensland Museum Curator of Vertebrates, told the ABC.
Usually, when pigmented animals such as kangaroos are found with white fur, feathers or scales, they are believed to be albino.
“You can have true albino, which you need to look for pink eyes, or sometimes there's another type of mutation called leucism where sometimes they'll have black eyes,” Oliver added.
Leucism results in the partial loss of pigmentation, causing white, pale, or patchy coloration of the skin and other parts but not the eyes, he explained.
Albino kangaroos have been spotted earlier also. In 2020, ABC had posted a photo of “cute albino joey and mum” who were spotted at Gorge Wildlife Park in South Australia.
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