A strange cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) has been photographed in Kenya by wildlife artist Guy Combes. The "golden" cheetah's telltale spots are bizarrely diluted.
"Scientists believe it is a 'morph' due to a recessive gene and not an albino or leucistic variation which makes this cheetah, like the king cheetah of South Africa and Zimbabwe, extremely unusual. There is hope that his existence may shine a spotlight on the fact that there are approximately 1,000 cheetahs left in Kenya and they are rapidly losing ground to human development," Combes told mongabay.com, noting that such spotless cheetahs were recorded in the 1920s but have been rarely sighted since. Combes photographed the animal early last year.
Read more and see photo:http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0423-spotlesscheetah-pod.html#ixzz1t8feptp0
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!