big-cat-network:

King Cheetahs: Is their beauty worth the consequences?

written by admin Lynx

The king cheetah is a color mutation of the cheetah, causing blotches and stripes in place of their usual, uniform spots. Sometimes, they even have small “manes,” with the fur on the back of their neck and shoulder blades being longer than they tend to be on the average cheetah. At one point, they were classified as their own species, Acinonyx rex, though this was disproved in 1981 when two spotted female cheetahs gave birth to king cheetah cubs at the De Wildt Cheetah and Wildlife Centre in South Africa.

The king tabby mutation is recessive, meaning that both parents must possess the gene for it to show on the coat of their offspring. Due to this, only a handful are believed to exist in the wild. But of course, it did not take long for humans to take notice of these unique cheetahs and exploit them.

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twofacedsheep:

Leopard with erythrism.

Original Source.

Rohrkatze (by Cloudtail)

twofacedsheep:

Melanistic Serval.

Original Source.

bigcatawareness:

twofacedsheep:

Guy Combes photography

A picture of the male “spotless” cheetah I haven’t seen around tumblr yet. Apparently the creature is thriving and doing quite well for himself.

Another picture! I bet he is, it doesn’t seem like he would be at any disadvantage with that coloration. He blends right in. While what causes this is probably not very good(I’m lookin at you bottlenecking) this is still incredibly interesting.

Wow, I haven’t seen this pic of him before. According to this color morph chart, he’s a “ticked” or “speckled" cheetah. Can’t tell which. 

tigerskinsandotherthings:

A piebald European Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes crucigera). In foxes, the pied areas of white most commonly effect the feet, legs and hindquarters. These abnormal areas of white are most commonly seen in captive-bred foxes, but occasionally it appears in wild foxes, as with the individual above. 

Photo by jans canon // CC license 2.0

howtohavegaysubtext:

bigcatawareness:

tulipnight:

Genetically Different Coloured White Tiger Cub by vijvijvij on Flickr.

This is the closest I’ve seen yet to a melanistic tiger, which is incredibly interesting to see in a white tiger no less.  That being said, and novelty aside, have a look at how messed up this tiger looks.  I almost think these cubs are declawed because the front paws in the top picture look so bizarre.  The cub is already crosseyed too…

Yeah, certainly interesting but these cats do not look the healthiest out there. He doesn’t look declawed to me though, just really messed up paws.

From what I have found, the cub’s name was Chembian and he and his family belong to the Arignar Anna Zoological Park in Tamil Nadu, India. He did survive until adulthood but it sounds like he died after sustaining injuries from a tigress during attempts to breed him. This zoo really seems to have a lot of unethical breeding practices with their tigers though.

Hmm yeah, I don’t think he’s declawed, just has messed up paws. Does anyone else notice how grey (as in his base coat color) he looked as a cub? On this chart here I was thinking “black chinchilla”. But it looks like he lost the grey in adulthood. 

Caracal (Desert Lynx) (by Pat’s Pics36)

ayla-kurone:

Melanism in the Caracal Caracal.
Source unknown.

EDIT:

I found the first picture on this website, and apparently it’s at the Adelaide zoo in Australia. 

http://livingtravel.com/australia/southaustralia/Zoo/zoo_01.htm

twofacedsheep:

Adult male Bengal tiger in Simlipal National park sporting an abundistic stripe pattern.