Amateur photographer Richard Taylor went out for a walk at his lunch break in Ipswich, Suffolk when he noticed an unusual pink grasshopper in the reeds, near a small lake. With this appearance the insect could not maintain ... a low profile in its green environment. Its color is due to a rare genetic mutation called erythriasis, which is similar to albinism, making the body produce more red protein.
A rare white moose wandered on the property of a man in the Värmland area in the southwestern part of Sweden. The animal crossed a shallow river to grazing across the tall grass when he met his "photographer". The white color covers the entire body, even the horns, and this coloring is not due to albinism, as many can think. A gene mutation causes the animal to develop white spots on its body, a condition called whiteness.
Many blue dogs have recently seen the inhabitants on the streets of Mumbai in India. Changing their appearance is linked to pollution in the Kasadi River, where they swim and seek food.
Pinky first appeared in 2007 to swim with his mother and reappeared several times in the last ten years in the Cancun Calcasieu Canal near Hackberry, where he was recorded on video by Bridget Boudreaux, who was on a cruise ship when he saw it. Pinky's coloring is believed to be a form of albinism or a rare genetic mutation.
The proud mommy of the nine retriever puppies could never imagine that one of her babies would not be brown, but ... green. The rare phenomenon occurs when light-colored puppies come in contact with a green pigment found on the bile. (It's the same dye that makes the bruising green in our skin.) This substance usually dyed their fur in the uterus and the color fades over time.
The Slate Gray snake, native to Australia, is usually dark brown or black. She was found in the Wildlife Park in Berry Springs and is not albino but suffers from leucosis, an even less observable condition characterized by loss of pigment on the skin but not by the eyes.
A recent campaign at the heart of Gabon's Abanda Caves revealed an unusual orange crocodile population. The crocodiles share the area with thousands of bats that are their food. Just because there is a large amount of food here for them, they do not have to go out, while the living conditions inside the caves are better than outside. The deeper the caves go, the more orange they seem to be. "The lack of light makes the skin colorless and, in the case of crocodiles, the orange color is a transitional stage until it is completely discolored, as it gradually becomes smoother," says biologist Matthew Shirley.
